Pakistan has restored liaison officers at co-ordination centres on the Afghanistan border, Nato said on Monday, in a slight easing of tensions, after Nato air strikes last month killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers and provoked fury across the country.
But the US-led coalition's supply lines that run through Pakistan remain closed since the November 26 incident and it is both in the interests of foreign forces as well as Pakistan that the routes be opened sooner rather than later, the alliance said.
But the top Nato commander in Afghanistan, US General John Allen, had spoken to the army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and there were signs of progress over the last few days, Brigadier General Carsten Jacobsen, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters. "We have seen liaison officers, Pakistani officers, return to border co-ordination centres, General Allen has spoken to General Kayani, so we are moving in the right direction," he said. "It is in our interest as well as Pakistan's interests, for economic reasons that they reopen these routes sooner rather than later," he said.