NATO, Kazakhstan agree on overland supply route to Afghanistan
By APWednesday, January 27, 2010
NATO, Kazakhstan agree on Afghan supply route
BRUSSELS — NATO says it has reached agreement with Kazakhstan to open a key new supply route for the international force in Afghanistan.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the link from Europe to Afghanistan, via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, will offer an alternative to the alliance’s main logistics chain through Pakistan. This has come under repeated militant attack in the past.
Although the land and air route through Russia and Central Asia has been used in the past by individual NATO nations, the alliance as a whole did not have permanent rights to cross Kazakh territory.
The statement comes as the military heads of NATO’s 27 member nations meet in Brussels with the defense chiefs of two dozen partner nations, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, to discuss the progress in the war.
