US holds Caucasus talks on transit to Afghanistan: embassy

US holds Caucasus talks on transit to Afghanistan: embassy
03/09/2009

BAKU (AFP) – US military officials have held talks with government and
business representatives from Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan on the
transport of supplies to Afghanistan, the US embassy in Baku said
Tuesday.

The two days of talks in Baku, which concluded Tuesday, were aimed to
"coordinate transportation issues that will facilitate the shipment of
supplies to US, NATO and partner military forces operating in
Afghanistan" through the Caucasus region, the embassy said in a
statement.

It noted that the talks focused on "non-lethal supplies" and that "no
military personnel are involved in the actual transportation of
supplies through the Caucasus."

The United States has been seeking new transit routes to supply
coalition forces in Afghanistan amid growing instability in Pakistan,
its main transit route, and the announcement by Central Asian nation
Kyrgyzstan last month of the closure of a key US airbase on its
territory.

There are nearly 70,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan helping
the government fight an extremist insurgency led by the Taliban, who
were in power between 1996 and 2001.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS