Pakistan and US to resume talks on NATO supply route

The US is to discuss with Pakistan the reopening of NATO supply route to Afghanistan. News outlets in Kabul and Islamabad reported that, Deputy Secretary of State, Thomas Nides travelled to Pakistan on 4 April to resume the talks which started on 27 March between President Obama and Prime Minister Gillani at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.

However, the new agreement proposed by the US is likely to face resistance in the Pakistan Parliament.  According to the National Highway Authority (NHA), Nato containers use the N-5 National Highway from Karachi to Torkham and N-25 from Karachi to Chaman, when supplying goods to forces stationed in Afghanistan. NHA estimates put the damage caused to the country’s infrastructure by Nato trucks at close to Rs120 billion. The US has agreed to Pakistani demands of higher compensation and transport taxes on the supply routes but elements within the Parliament are opposed to the American’s refusal to cede drone attacks in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, especially given the public opposition to US drone attacks.

Several American officials have stated that the Obama administration will show ‘zero tolerance’ on their drone policy. But the administration has upped the diplomatic efforts in praising the Pakistan Parliament in the hope that the new agreement is voted through.

The reopening of the supply route has already been met with strong opposition. At the Parliamentary Committee on National Security meeting on Thursday 5 April, the chief of the Jamiat Ulema-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) stormed out stating that the religious right of Pakistan would spuriously resist it. Another council composed of religious hardline Islamist groups, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, said they would protest against the reopening. The talks come at a time when the US has slapped a bounty of $10m on Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, on accusations of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai bombings in which 166 people were killed. The religious right of Pakistan see the bounty and the efforts to reopen the supply route to Afghanistan as further breach of their sovereignty by the US.

The supply route was closed following furious backlash to US drone attacks in November last year which killed 26 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border.