BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO and Russia are ready to conclude a series of agreements designed to boost cooperation in the Afghan war, a senior U.S. official said Monday.
These include expanding the current arrangement that enables NATO to ship non-lethal supplies from Europe to Afghanistan overland through Russia, said the official who asked not to be identified under standing rules.
It would allow for heavy equipment to be transported in the future, and NATO will also be able to ship the equipment back to Europe via the same routes, he said.
The alliance already uses routes through Russia and neighboring Central Asian states as an alternative to its main, ambush-prone, logistics route through Pakistan. But current arrangements allow only for the one-way transport of non-lethal supplies such as food and fuel.
NATO and Russia are to expected to sign the agreement at a NATO summit in Portugal. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will attend Friday and Saturday.
The agreements highlight the improving ties between the former Cold War rivals in the Afghan war, where the U.S. and NATO already have about 150,000 troops. Russia, which fears the expansion of Islamic extremism along its southern borders, has refused to deploy its own forces in Afghanistan, but has offered to help NATO’s war effort.
The U.S. official says other accords will cover a new counter-narcotics center to be set up in Russia to train agents from Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations.
Moscow has repeatedly expressed concerns over the sharp increase in drug smuggling from Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. It has already trained hundreds of counter-narcotics agents from Afghanistan and Central Asian at a smaller facility near Moscow.
The official also said the parties would establish a joint trust fund to finance the training of Afghan maintenance crews on the Russian-built helicopters operated by the nascent air force.
