14 December 2008: Bloomberg
By Camilla Hall
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- General David Petraeus, head of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the destruction of NATO equipment in Pakistan this month brings a “new urgency” to finding alternative supply routes into Afghanistan.
“The supply line issues in Pakistan are quite serious,” Petraeus said during a security meeting in Bahrain. “There have been actually already various initiatives that now obviously take a new urgency.”
Possible alternatives include the countries north of Afghanistan, referred to by Petraeus as “the Stans.” These are the former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. At least two countries from the coalition, including Germany, are already bringing materials through Russia, Petraeus said. “We’ll leave that to the alliance to examine if that should be done further.”
Militants attacked North Atlantic Treaty Organization trucks at their base in Pakistan last weekend, setting fire to hundreds of vehicles laden with supplies. A Russian official said today that if relations with NATO were positive he wouldn’t rule out helping the alliance further with inland transportation or air corridors for getting supplies into Afghanistan.
“Looking at the map we see many roads and paths going to Afghanistan but in fact they are dangerous to step on,” Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of Russia’s Committee for Foreign Affairs and a member of the Federation Council, said today during the same conference, organized by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies. “The Russian corridor is the safest. That is why NATO and Russia have a common interest.”
Improved Ties
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin welcomed the decision by western European countries led by Germany on Dec. 2 to maintain a veto on fast-track NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, and succeeded in lifting a U.S.-driven freeze on NATO’s contacts with Russia.
Russia, which fought a five-day war with U.S.-allied Georgia in August, has warned against the expansion of the Cold War-era rival military bloc to its southern and western borders.
“It sounds realistic today because after the relations between NATO and Russia were frozen after the conflict in the southern Caucuses in August this year I see several signals, several indications of the improvement of relations,” Margelov said. “I think that we could really build some realistic projects together.”
France and Germany are currently the only NATO members allowed to fly supplies to Afghanistan through Russian airspace, according to the London-based Times newspaper. Last month, Germany became the first NATO member to be allowed to transport goods through Russia by railway, the Times said.
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