Islamabad: US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will visit Pakistan on Monday, officials said, as the suspension of NATO shipments from Afghanistan via Pakistan due to anti-drone protests was lifted.
Hagel, who has been in Afghanistan since Saturday, will meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the first visit by a US defense secretary to Pakistan for nearly four years.
Ties between Washington and Islamabad have become deeply troubled over US drone strikes in tribal belt.
In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and its allied parites including Jamaat-e-Islami continued protests against US drone strikes which compelled the US to stop NATO supplies from Torkham.
But a US defence official told reporters in Kabul that the suspension of shipments via Pakistan had been lifted because the protests had stopped, allowing NATO trucks to move safely through the Torkham gate pass.
The pass is the main overland route used by the Americans and NATO to withdraw military hardware from Afghanistan as part of a troop pullout set to wrap up by the end of 2014.
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