Ending
a bitter seven-month row between the two nations, Clinton issued a
statement Tuesday in which she expressed America's "deepest regrets" and
said: "sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military," in the
attack that brought relations between US and Pakistan to all time low.
Following
the apology, Pakistan agreed to re-open the NATO supply routes into
Afghanistan that it had closed in retaliation of the attacks.
A
newspaper in New York quoted people with knowledge of the process as
saying that Clinton began working on drafts of the statement she
released on Tuesday several weeks ago.
"This was jointly done," said the person.
"It
was Clinton's increasingly cordial relationship with the young
Pakistani foreign minister that paid dividends in resolving the
dispute," American officials said, adding that while the State
Department had issued the statement, it had been coordinated with
Clinton's Pakistani counterpart Khar.
The
stalemate had threatened to jeopardize counter-terror cooperation,
complicated US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and forced America to
pay more than a billion dollars extra shipping fees to use an
alternative route through Central Asia to get the NATO supplies into
Afghanistan.
Pakistani
officials said they had misjudged NATO's ability to adapt to the
closing of the supply routes and use the alternative route, which was
costing up to an extra USD 100 million a month.
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