US offers formal apology to Pakistan
Magic Words Re-Open Pakistan Supply Routes: “We’re Sorry”

July 3, 2012

Tanker trucks sit alongside a road in Karachi, Pakistan, getting ready to move out to fuel U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before the Pakistan government shut the route down last fall.The good news is Pakistan has finally re-opened its overland supply routes to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The bad news is that it took eight months – and $2.1 billion – to get Islamabad to agree. Plus, a U.S. apology. The two supply routes, which allow the U.S. to send food and fuel to troops in Afghanistan from the Pakistan port of Karachi, were shut down by Pakistan following an errant air strike last November 26 by U.S. forces that killed 24 Pakistani troops along their border with Afghanistan.

The U.S. had refused to apologize for the mistaken attack – contending there were errors on both sides – but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke that impasse in a Tuesday phone call with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military,” Clinton told Khar, a statement issued by the State Department said. “We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”

The deal re-opening the so-called ground lines of communication – GLOCs – also had face-saving gestures by both sides: Pakistan agreed not to increase its tolls for such shipments, and the U.S. agreed it would not ship lethal aid via the routes unless it is intended for Afghan security forces.

“As I have made clear,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, “we remain committed to improving our partnership with Pakistan and to working closely together as our two nations confront common security challenges in the region.”

Since the Pakistanis shuttered the routes last fall, U.S. supplies have had to either be flown in, or shipped overland from the north. ”On the ground, it is almost three times more expensive to come from the north as it does from Pakistan,” Vice Admiral Mark Harnitchek, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, said last week. “More expensive and slower.” It costs, he said, about $20,000 per container shipped through Russia and Central Asia, compared to about $7,000 when shipped through Pakistan. The U.S. had been paying about $250 in tolls to Pakistan before November’s attack. Following it, Islamabad was seeking as much as $5,000 per truck.

“There is a delta between the two sides on the charges that may be assigned to the reopening of the supply routes, and that’s something we have to work through,” Pentagon spokesman George Little told Battleland in May. “We are in a phase now where we’re trying to reset the relationship with Pakistan.”

Pakistan reopens supply routes into Afghanistan after Clinton says ‘sorry'
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that Pakistan was reopening ground supply lines into neighboring Afghanistan after she apologized for the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO strike in November.
"We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military," Clinton told Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar by telephone. America's top diplomat said in a statement that she had also offered "our deepest regrets for the tragic incident" on Pakistani soil that led that country to shut the supply lines.
American and NATO officials had said that the closure of the routes had not hurt the alliance's war on the Taliban, but that they would be crucial to the plan to withdraw the International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) 130,000 troops by the end of 2014. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress earlier this month that the need to rely on other supply lines was costing NATO an additional $100 million per month and suggested perhaps imposing limits on America's aid to its sometimes fitful ally.
"Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives," Clinton said. "We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again."
The stalemate over the supply lines was just one of many symptoms of fraying ties in the aftermath of the May 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his hideout in a garrison city in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities expressed anger that they had not been consulted. American officials charged that some Pakistani officials must have known that the al-Qaida mastermind was there. Relations have also suffered from escalating American drone strikes inside Pakistan. And American lawmakers had increasingly discussed the possibility of reducing—or tying strings to—military and economic aid from Washington.

"America respects Pakistan's sovereignty and is committed to working together in pursuit of shared objectives on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect," Clinton said.
"Our countries should have a relationship that is enduring, strategic and carefully defined, and that enhances the security and prosperity of both our nations and the region," she said.
Clinton said that her Pakistani counterpart "has informed me that the ground supply lines into Afghanistan are opening." Pakistan will not charge a transit fee, she added, calling that "a tangible demonstration of Pakistan's support" for NATO's goals in Afghanistan.
"This will also help the United States and ISAF conduct the planned drawdown at a much lower cost," Clinton said. But "no lethal equipment" will pass through that route except for weapons going to Afghanistan's security forces.
The standoff had cast a cloud over NATO's summit in Chicago in May. American officials had privately expressed hope that the stalemate would be broken before the gathering, which Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari attended. President Barack Obama briefly spoke to Zardari but did not hold a full-fledged bilateral meeting—a move seen in some circles as a snub related to the supply lines issue.
At the summit, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters that the transit routes' closure had not affected the war effort "so far."
"But it goes without saying that it will be quite a logistical challenge to draw down the number of troops in the coming months and years," Rasmussen said. "So we need a number of transit routes, and obviously the transit routes through Pakistan are of great importance, and I would expect a reopening of the transit routes in the very near future."

Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/07/03/magic-words-re-open-pakistan-supply-routes-were-sorry/#ixzz1zaZNqEKZ