Islamabad: US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Pakistan that it risks losing financial aid if a key supply route to Afghanistan remains blocked by protesters.
Workers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and its allied parties in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) have blocked roads in Peshawar and other northwestern towns to protest US drone strikes, leading the Pentagon to announce a week ago that it was halting shipments on one of the main routes into Afghanistan.
Hagel told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during a meeting in Islamabad that reimbursements to Pakistan for Afghan war costs may be jeopardized in Congress by the holdup of supplies, according to a U.S. defense official who discussed the meetings on condition of anonymity. Sharif said he had address the protests, according to Pentagon spokesman Carl Woog.
The Prime Minister assured Chuck Hagel that Pakistan would take ‘immediate action’ to resolve the shipment problem but US should stop drone attacks.
Sharif told Hagel that drone strikes were “counter-productive to our efforts to combat terrorism and extremism on an enduring basis,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
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