Obama Presses Pakistani President to Open Supply Routes


Their meeting, which was also attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, comes amid mounting tension over Pakistan's refusal to re-open its Afghanistan border to NATO, forcing the United States and others to supply their forces through longer, alternative routes. The channels would also be crucial to NATO's exit plan to withdraw forces and military equipment from Afghanistan, posing a potential logistical nightmare for the alliance.

"President Zardari shared with me his belief that these issues can get worked through," Obama later told reporters at a press conference. "We didn't anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved by this summit. We knew that before we arrived in Chicago. But we're actually making diligent progress on it.




"I don't want to paper over real challenges there," Obama said. "There's no doubt that there have been tensions between ISAF and Pakistan, the United States and Pakistan over the last several months… But ultimately, it is in our interest to see a successful, stable Pakistan, and it is in Pakistan's interests to work with us and the world community to ensure that they themselves are not consumed by extremism that is in their midst. And so we're going to keep on going at this."
