ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Saturday announced the reopening of the main land route for NATO supplies crossing into Afghanistan from Torkham in the northwest “with immediate effect”.
Torkham lies on the main NATO supply route to Afghanistan, where US and NATO forces are fighting a nine-year Taliban insurgency, and is vital to the Afghan war effort.
“After assessing the security situation in all its aspects, the government has decided to reopen the NATO/ISAF supply from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Torkham with immediate effect,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.
“Our relevant authorities are now in the process of coordinating with authorities on the other side of the border to ensure smooth resumption of the supply traffic.”
Shafeerullah Khan, the top administration official in Khyber tribal region, told AFP: “We are currently waiting for the government’s order about reopening of the border.”
Imam Hussain, a driver, who has been stuck at the border for days with his container loaded with NATO supplies, told AFP by telephone from Torkham: “I am really fed up…. My life is threatened here.”
“This is going to be the last trip of my life to Afghanistan. I will never come back to this area,” he said.
Pakistan shut the route at Torkham in protest at a cross-border NATO helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers. The alliance said its personnel had fired back in self-defence.
The US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson Wednesday apologised on behalf of the American people for the “terrible accident”.
Patterson said in a statement: “A joint investigation of the incident had established that the US helicopters had mistaken the Pakistani Frontier Scouts for insurgents they had been pursuing.”
More than 100 NATO oil tankers and supply trucks have been destroyed in militant attacks in just over a week as the rebels step up their efforts to disrupt supplies.
The Pakistani Taliban have vowed more raids to avenge a new wave of US drone strikes targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the northwest.
The border region is being targeted by a record number of US drone strikes and was reportedly where Al-Qaeda hatched a plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany uncovered by Western intelligence agencies.
Pakistani authorities have reported 26 drone attacks since September 3. These have killed more than 140 people in the region, a hub for homegrown and foreign militants fighting in Afghanistan.
A second border crossing at Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province remains open.
