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(Continued from page 30)
New US leverage seen in negotiations with Pakistan over NATO supply route
• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The U.S. is trying to break deadlocked talks with Pakistan over reopening a route for NATO troop supplies into Afghanistan -- a deal that has proven elusive due to Islamabad's demands for more money and Washington's refusal to apologize for accidentally killing Pakistani forces.
• Now the U.S. may have a little more leverage on its side, thanks to an agreement struck with some Central Asian countries to carry NATO equipment out through their territory. Before this week's agreement, Pakistan provided the only available land route to pull out gear.
• Peter Lavoy, a senior Defense Department official, is expected in Islamabad at the end of the week to try to resolve the current dispute.
• Pakistan first closed the supply line in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. Prior to the attack, the U.S. and other NATO countries shipped about 30 percent of their nonlethal supplies through Pakistan into southern Afghanistan.
• Since then, the coalition compensated by using a longer, more costly route that runs through northern Afghanistan, Central Asia and Russia. This alternative route was only available to ship supplies into Afghanistan until Monday, when Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan agreed to allow the coalition to withdraw equipment as well. NATO already has an agreement with Russia for the withdrawal of material.
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Can this marriage work? GOP conservatives and Romney try to make peace to oust Obama
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conservatives at the core of the Republican Party are coalescing behind likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney faster than expected after a punishing primary season in which they loudly sought someone else -- almost anybody else -- to carry the fight to President Barack Obama.
• They're opposed to Obama more than they like, trust or accept Romney as the party's standard-bearer. And they recognize that the former Massachusetts governor is their only real choice.
• "I'm going (to support him) because it's my responsibility and, frankly, almost anything is going to be better than Obama," said Steve Troxel, chairman of the (Continued on page 32)
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