Russia to let NATO armour vehicles transit to Afghanistan

Russian foreign minister says expanded transit deal will reduce NATO reliance on Pakistan.

MOSCOW: Russia will let NATO take armoured vehicles to Afghanistan through its territory under an expanded transit deal that would reduce reliance on Pakistan, its foreign minister said on Thursday.

'The transit applies to armoured vehicles with anti-mine protection,' Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing attended by his Afghan counterpart Zalmay Rasul.

Lavrov added that existing transit deals, permitting the Western military alliance to ship non-lethal supplies such as food and fuel to Afghanistan, would be expanded to allow for so-called 'reverse shipments'.

The addendum would potentially allow for vehicles in need of repair and refurbishment to be sent back to NATO countries.

Currently, about 80 percent of NATO's supplies cross through Pakistan. NATO has been trying to reduce its dependence on oil convoy routes through Pakistan because they are exposed to frequent militant attacks. A particularly brazen strike last month set ablaze over two dozen tankers.

Rasul said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was planning a visit to the Russian capital in January.

Karzai has sought improve ties with Moscow and asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on his last Russian trip in August for help in establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The transit deal stops short of opening the Russian route for weapons for the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where Moscow fought a disastrous 1979-89 war which still haunts Russia and which killed 15,000 Soviet troops.

Russia's NATO envoy was quick on Thursday to stress that the deal would not allow NATO to ship tanks or combat-ready armoured personnel carriers (APCs) through Russian territory.

'We are not talking about APCs or armoured vehicles that could participate in military action, but vehicles with reinforced protection to transport mainly civilian personnel,'envoy Dmitry Rogozin told Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Lavrov also said Russian counter-narcotics experts would continue to participate in joint anti-drug raids with NATO in Afghanistan, after the first such operation last month, in a sign of easing ties between the former Cold War foes.

Russia has been vocally critical of what it views as NATO's failure to stem the Afghan opium trade, the bulk of which flows north to Russia through Central Asia's porous borders, fuelling an HIV/AIDS epidemic from heroin addicts who inject the drug.