| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| NATO seeks deal with Russia for flights to Afghanistan |
| 2009-01-01 |
| NATO is seeking to seal an agreement with Moscow to allow the military alliance to fly equipment over Russian airspace to Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday. "Both sides are already aware of the fact that an air agreement would be desirable," the NATO official told AFP. The talks "at many levels" are able to take place now following the end of a four-month freeze the alliance imposed after Moscow sent troops into Georgia. Envoys from NATO and Russia are set to hold top-level talks next month where the question could be raised. Moscow agreed in April to allow "non-lethal" NATO supplies to transit Russian territory by land on its way to Afghanistan. This must be done largely by train and involves obtaining similar transit agreements with other countries in the region such as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, the official said. "This is part of the Russian-NATO cooperation regarding Afghanistan. We have the land agreement and now of course one important thing is also to have an air transit agreement." Some individual countries, including Germany, already have such an agreement for supplies to Afghanistan. |
| Posted by:Fred |