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US supply trucks cross Afghan-Pakistan border

Pakistan allowed four containers of office supplies for the US embassy in Kabul to cross into Afghanistan for the first time following a six-month blockade, officials said on Friday.

The trucks were permitted to cross as Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari prepares to meet NATO leaders at a key summit in Chicago, accepting a last-minute invitation after his foreign minister indicated Pakistan was willing to call time on the blockade.

Islamabad closed its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies on November 26 when US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, leaving hundreds of containers of international supplies stranded at the port in Karachi and plunging relations with Washington to a new low.

The four trucks of US embassy supplies crossed Pakistan’s northwest Torkham border into Afghanistan, the officials told AFP on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information to the media.

“I can’t give you the exact number but a lot more will go to Afghanistan in coming days. These all are diplomatic shipments, I mean non-NATO supplies,” one of the officials said.

In Kabul, the US embassy said it could not confirm the shipment.

There were conflicting accounts of when the trucks crossed, with one source saying they began moving earlier in the week and another saying they passed through on Friday.

Almost 300 containers of US embassy supplies, including stationery, computers and printers, are understood to have been stranded in Pakistan by the blockade.

Pakistan and US officials are still negotiating rules, fees and logistics for resuming the NATO transit lines, and Islamabad has not said when NATO supplies will resume.