PAKISTAN ACCEPTS US APOLOGY AND US$1.1 BILLION FOR THE REOPENING OF SUPPLIES ROUTE:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in a statement issued on Tuesday that she offered “deepest regrets for the tragic incident” during a telephone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, AFP reported.
“We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again,” Clinton said.
“In addition, I am pleased that Foreign Minister Khar has informed me that the ground supply lines… into Afghanistan are opening,” she added.
This is the first time that a US official has formally apologized for the killings.
Shortly after Clinton’s statement, Pakistani Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira confirmed Islamabad’s decision to reopen the supply routes into Afghanistan.
However, in response, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) threatened to attack the supply trucks and kill their drivers.
"We will attack NATO supplies all over Pakistan. We will not allow anyone to use Pakistani soil to transport supplies that will be used against the Afghan people," TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said late on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a US official said that Washington will release about $1.1 billion to the Pakistani military as part of a deal to reopen the supply routes.
Islamabad closed the border crossings used to transfer NATO supplies to Afghanistan in November 2011 after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in US-led airstrikes on two checkpoints on the Afghan border. Pakistan had repeatedly asked the US to apologize for the attack.
In early June, NATO reached agreements with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan to allow the Western military alliance to transport vehicles and other military hardware from Afghanistan, permitting the alliance to send tens of thousands of vehicles and supplies from Afghanistan to Europe later this year. NATO had previously made an agreement with Russia on an exit route.