ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s foreign minister suggested Monday that the country should reopen its Afghan border to NATOtroop supplies, saying the government had made its point by closing the route for nearly six months in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Reopening the border risks a domestic outcry in Pakistan given Washington’s refusal to apologize for the attack, which it says was an accident. But it could help ensure that Pakistan has a role in the future of Afghanistan as NATO prepares to retool its strategy there during a conference that starts Sunday in Chicago.
Pakistan’s presence would benefit the American-led coalition as well, because the country is seen as crucial to striking a peace deal with the Taliban and their allies in Afghanistan that would allow foreign troops to withdraw without the nation descending into further chaos.
The supply line running through Pakistan to Afghanistan will be critical to that withdrawal as NATO pulls out more than a decade’s worth of equipment. It has been critical for shipping in supplies as well, although the United States has reduced its reliance on Pakistan in recent years by using a more costly route through Central Asia.
The foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said the government made the right decision to close the border to NATO to send a message to Washington that the attack on its troops in November was unacceptable.
“It was important to make a point,” Ms. Khar said at a news conference in Islamabad when asked whether she believed that Pakistan should reopen the supply route. “Pakistan has made a point, and now we can move on.”
The United States welcomed Ms. Khar’s comments, but said the two countries had yet to reach a final deal.
“Our team is still in Islamabad working on the land-route issue,” the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said in Washington. “My understanding this morning is that they have made considerable progress but they are still working.”
Pakistan’s defense committee of the cabinet, which is responsible for deciding the fate of the supply route, was scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the issue and could authorize its reopening.
Shams Shahwani, a senior official in Pakistan’s Petroleum Tanker Owners Association, said he was contacted Monday by Petroleum Ministry officials who told him the NATO supply route would probably be opened by Wednesday evening. They told him to assemble his tankers in Karachi so they would be ready.
The United States and Pakistan still disagree on the circumstances that led American helicopters to strike two Pakistani Army posts on the Afghan border, with Pakistan claiming the attack was deliberate.
The episode added to already rampant anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and plunged the troubled relations between the countries to an all-time low, threatening the vital, if spotty, antiterrorism cooperation Washington has received since 2001 in exchange for billions of dollars in American aid.
Pakistan not only retaliated by blocking NATO supplies, but also kicked the United States out of a base used by American drones targeting fighters for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal region along the Afghan border.
The United States expressed its regret for the soldiers’ deaths but stopped short of an outright apology.
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