| Truck drivers set to resume Nato supply convoys |
KARACHI/ ISLAMABAD Thousands of Pakistani truck drivers on Wednesday prepared to resume key Nato supply convoys into Afghanistan as a coalition of religious and banned organisations called for countrywide protests.
Islamabad agreed to reopen the land routes into its war-torn neighbour to end a bitter seven-month standoff after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was sorry for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in an air strike in November.
Clinton stressed “Pakistan will continue not to charge any transit fee”.
“We will observe the protest day against resumption of Nato supplies on July 6 and hold a long march from Lahore to Islamabad on July 8,” chairman of the Defence of Pakistan coalition, Maulana Samiul Haq said.
Briefing the media after the coalition’s meeting in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, Haq, who runs a madrassa that educated several Taliban leaders, threatened a blockade if the government does not reverse its decision.
“The coalition will practically block the supplies in the second phase of its protest campaign if the government fails to reverse its decision,” he said.
He added that all opposition parties including the main Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Movement for Justice party will also be invited to join hands with the coalition in the march and to a conference on July 7.
Pakistan’s religious parties reacting belligerently threatened a movement against the announcement made by Islamabad on the resumptions of Nato supply routes, DawnNews reported.
Jamiat Ulemai Islam chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman said that only the parliament has the authority to resume the blocked Nato supply as it was the parliament’s decision only to block the Nato supply routes in the first place.
He added that neither the president nor the prime minister had sole authority on the issue.
As part of the re-opening deal, which followed months of negotiations, Washington will release about $1.1 billion to the Pakistani military from a US “coalition support fund” designed to reimburse Pakistan for the cost of counter-insurgency operations.
In mid-June this year, Leon Panetta, the 23rd Secretary of Defence of the US, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the closure of the routes was costing the US military about an extra $100 million per month.
The Pentagon has now submitted the Omnibus Reprogramming Request and according to this request, “Pakistan’s refusal to let Nato access its ports and roads into Afghanistan has cost the Department of Defence more than $2.1 billion in extra transportation costs to move supplies and equipment in and out of the country.”
The deal, formally approved by the full cabinet on Wednesday, drew a swift warning from the Pakistani Taliban, who vowed to attack the trucks and kill the drivers if they resumed ferrying supplies to Afghanistan.
Dawn and Agencies
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