WASHINGTON — Pakistan has agreed to reopen its border to NATO supply convoys into Afghanistan after a seven-month blockade, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, adding Washington was sorry for the loss of life in a botched US air raid last year. The supply routes have been shut since November, when an American aircraft mistakenly killed 24 Pakistan soldiers, aggravating already difficult relations between Washington and Islamabad. The announcement, following months of negotiations, will come as a relief to the United States and its NATO allies which need the routes for a planned withdrawal of combat forces from Afghanistan through 2014. During a telephone conversation Tuesday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar “informed me that the ground supply lines into Afghanistan are opening,” Clinton said. Pakistan confirmed the reopening of the vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan. “The meeting of Pakistan's defense committee (DCC) of the cabinet has decided to reopen the NATO supplies,” Minister of Information, Qamar Zaman Kaira, told reporters in Islamabad. Islamabad has long demanded that Washington apologize for the deadly air raid before it would reopen the NATO routes. “Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives,” Clinton said. “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.” Earlier, new Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf acknowledged that keeping up the blockade would damage relations with the US and other NATO member states. “The continued closure of supply lines not only impinge our relationship with the US, but also on our relations with the 49 other member states of NATO,” he told a meeting of top civilian and military leaders. — Agencies
