Pakistan on Tuesday signed a deal with the United States allowing NATO convoys to travel into Afghanistan until the end of 2015, seeking to draw a line under a seven-month border blockade.
Islamabad agreed to reopen land routes for NATO goods on July 3 after the longest suspension of the 10-year war in Afghanistan in protest at botched US air raids that killed 24 Pakistani troops, but few trucks have made it across since then.
The agreement is part of efforts by the allies to patch up their fractious relationship, which plunged into crisis last year over the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistan, and the air strikes.
It comes just a day before the head of Pakistani intelligence, Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam, begins a three-day visit to Washington for talks with the head of the CIA, which has been interpreted as another sign of a gradual rapprochement.
Islamabad agreed to reopen land routes for NATO goods on July 3 after the longest suspension of the 10-year war in Afghanistan in protest at botched US air raids that killed 24 Pakistani troops, but few trucks have made it across since then.
The agreement is part of efforts by the allies to patch up their fractious relationship, which plunged into crisis last year over the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistan, and the air strikes.
It comes just a day before the head of Pakistani intelligence, Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam, begins a three-day visit to Washington for talks with the head of the CIA, which has been interpreted as another sign of a gradual rapprochement.