Report: NATO close to deal with Russia on Afghan withdrawal

RIA Novosti is reporting that the Russian government and NATO are close to a deal on the use of Russian facilities and aircraft to help remove alliance material and equipment from Afghanistan: NATO hopes to sign the first commercial agreement with Russia on use of the Ulyanovsk transit base for withdrawal of its forces from ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

RIA Novosti is reporting that the Russian government and NATO are close to a deal on the use of Russian facilities and aircraft to help remove alliance material and equipment from Afghanistan:

RIA Novosti is reporting that the Russian government and NATO are close to a deal on the use of Russian facilities and aircraft to help remove alliance material and equipment from Afghanistan:

NATO hopes to sign the first commercial agreement with Russia on use of the Ulyanovsk transit base for withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan "within the next few months," a NATO spokesman in Moscow said on Wednesday.

The huge amount of cargo being returned from Afghanistan means NATO will need all the assets it has, NATO’s Moscow office spokesman Robert Pshel said. The alliance is looking forward to signing the first commercial contracts with Russia to use the transit hub in Ulyanovsk in the next few months, he said.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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