Pakistan's civilian government should “bite the bullet” and re-open supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. government official said on Tuesday.

 

“If the civilian government in Islamabad would bite the bullet and make the political decision to open the ground lines of communication, that would deflect some of the negativity right now,” the official told Reuters.

 

“It wouldn't automatically turn things around, but that would be an important step.”

 

Pakistan had been the main supply route for U.S.-led forces occupying Afghanistan from October 2001 to November 2011.

 

Islamabad closed the border crossings used to transfer NATO supplies to Afghanistan in November 2011 after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in U.S.-led airstrikes on two checkpoints on the Afghan border.

 

 

The United States said on Monday it was withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan without securing a long-sought deal on supply routes for the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

 

“The decision was reached to bring the team home for a short period of time,” Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters in Washington on Monday, AFP reported.

 

“I believe that some of the team left over the weekend and the remainder of the team will leave shortly,” he added.

 

Little said the negotiators had been in Pakistan for nearly six weeks.

 

The Pentagon spokesman stated that there was no breakthrough in the talks and no date was set for a recommencement of the negotiations.

 

He went on to say that the U.S. would continue a “dialogue” process with Pakistan and the withdrawal of the negotiators did not mean Washington had abandoned talks with Islamabad.

 

“That's not to be taken as a sign of our unwillingness to continue the dialogue with Pakistanis on this issue,” he said, adding that the negotiating team is “prepared to return at any moment.”

 

Pakistan has asked the U.S. to apologize for the attack but Washington has refused.

 

Last week, NATO reached agreements with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan to allow the Western military alliance to transport vehicles and other military hardware from Afghanistan.

 

On June 4, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that deals had been made on the exit routes with the three Central Asian states.

 

NATO previously made an agreement with Russia on an exit route, so the new deals will permit the alliance to send tens of thousands of vehicles, containers, and other items from Afghanistan to Europe later this year.