Islamabad/Washington: Pakistan on Tuesday ended a seven-month-old blockade of crucial supply routes to Afghanistan after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologised for a cross-border NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year.
A meeting of Pakistan's highest decision-making body on security issues chaired by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and attended by army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani decided to reopen the Ground Lines of Communication (GLOCs) to Afghanistan.
The Defence Committee of the Cabinet further decided that "Pakistan will continue not to charge any transit fee" on supplies transported to foreign troops in Afghanistan through its territory.
This was done "to emphasise the point that the issue in the first place was not of the financial gains but of the principle of sovereignty," an official statement said....
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09:36 AM, Jul 04, 2012
