Pakistan weapons ban 'no bar to NATO convoys'

Pakistan's insistence that no arms transit through its territory to Afghanistan is largely a gesture to quell domestic anti-US sentiment and will not hinder the resumption of NATO convoys, analysts say.
Islamabad stopped NATO supplies travelling overland from its southern Karachi port to Afghanistan in November amid public outrage after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a US air strike on a border post.
Western officials were keen for Pakistan to commit to reopening the supply lines to landlocked Afghanistan before a NATO summit in Chicago next month.
A new framework for engaging with the US approved by Pakistani lawmakers late on Thursday was silent on the resumption of NATO convoys but said Pakistani soil must not be used to transport arms or ammunition to Afghanistan.
Analysts said this condition -- missing from an earlier draft of the framework -- would not hinder the reopening of NATO routes, as the convoys were mainly used to carry "non-lethal" supplies.
"There is no past evidence that weapons were transported via Pakistan ground routes," Pakistani political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.