NATO plans to open a new supply route to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia in the next eight weeks following a spate of attacks on its main lifeline through Pakistan this year, NATO and Russian sources told The Times on Saturday. | "It'll be weeks rather than months," said one NATO official. "Two months max." |
"It'll be weeks rather than months," said one NATO official. "Two months max."
Railway route: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the former Soviet Central Asian states that lie between Russia and Afghanistan, have agreed in principle to the railway route and are working out the small print with NATO, the sources said.
The 'Northern Corridor' is expected to be discussed at an informal meeting next week between Russia's Ambassador to NATO Dmitri Rogozin and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the report said.
The breakthrough reflects NATO and US commanders' growing concern about the attacks on their main supply line, which runs from the Pakistani port of Karachi via the Khyber Pass to Kabul and brings in 70 percent of their supplies. The rest is either driven from Karachi via the border town of Chaman to southern Afghanistan, or flown in at enormous expense in transport planes.
"We're all increasingly concerned," US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters on Wednesday. "But in that concern, we've worked pretty hard to develop options."
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