Russia threatens NATO alternative supply lines

Times:

Russia played a trump card in its strategic poker game with the West yesterday by threatening to suspend an agreement allowing Nato to take supplies and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.

The agreement was struck at a Nato summit in April to provide an alternative supply route to the road between the Afghan capital and the Pakistani border, which has come under attack from militants on both sides of the frontier this year.

Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan, told The Times in an interview that he believed the deal was no longer valid because Russia suspended military cooperation with Nato last week over its support for Georgia.

Asked if the move by Russia invalidated the agreement, he said: “Of course. Why not? If there is a suspension of military cooperation, this is military cooperation.”

Mr Kabulov also suggested that the stand-off over Georgia could lead Russia to review agreements allowing Nato members to use Russian airspace and to maintain bases in the former Soviet Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

“No one with common sense can expect to cooperate with Russia in one part of the world while acting against it in another,” he said.

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Russia appears to have done the impossible by making Pakistan look like the more responsible country. Pakistan has too much to lose by trying to cut the NATO supply lines. First, the Pakistan forces could not stop the US and NATO troops from moving through the country and to attempt to do so would cause Pakistan to forfeit substantial money.

Russia too is forfeiting something in this process and it has even more to lose in the long run.