Longuet did not say how much the cost was to use the route through Uzbekistan, the last leg of the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that runs from Europe to Afghanistan. Recent reports have claimed the U.S. is paying the Central Asian governments some $500 million annually to use the route. Estimates are that some 75 percent of non-lethal military cargo headed for Afghanistan now transits the NDN and most of that enters Afghanistan from Uzbekistan.
Longuet said the route was “not optimal” for withdrawing NATO forces but conceded the better option – via Pakistan – was currently more complicated due to “spoiled relations” between NATO countries, particularly the U.S., and the Pakistani government. That chill in ties followed U.S forces’ November 26 accidental attack on Pakistani troops just on the other side of the Afghan border that left 26 Pakistani soldiers dead.
Pakistani authorities responded by closing the land route used by NATO forces going into Afghanistan and ordering a U.S. drone base in Pakistan closed.
Even prior to the mistaken attack on Pakistani forces, NATO was already shipping more of its cargo via the NDN. NATO invited the Turkmen and Uzbek presidents to the alliance’s summit in Bucharest in April 2008 to discuss passage into Afghanistan as supply routes through Pakistan’s tribal areas increasingly came under attack by militants. That NATO meeting laid the foundations for NDN.
NATO countries intend to complete the drawdown of their forces in Afghanistan by 2014. With Pakistani routes at best insecure, NATO, as Longuet said, sees NDN as the way out of Afghanistan for its troops and equipment. Longuet said negotiations for an exit route are currently under way with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
NDN starts in Latvia then goes to Russia, Kazakhstan and into Uzbekistan. NATO also uses an air base in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and the U.S. uses the Manas base at the Bishkek airport in Kyrgyzstan.
written by the central newsroom
Source Article from http://www.rferl.org/content/article/24479324.html
