US to send non-military cargo to Afghanistan via Russia

August 14th, 2009 US Marines to help train Georgian troopsTBILISI, Georgia — A group of U.S. Marines will arrive in Georgia to help train its troops for a mission alongside coalition forces in Afghanistan, the U.S.

July 3rd, 2009 MOSCOW - Moscow and Washington will sign deals expanding bilateral military ties and on transit of military supplies via Russia to the American troops in Afghanistan during President Barack Obama's visit to the Russian capital, an official said Friday. The signing of the pacts will reflect "the political decision on the resumption of full-scale military contacts between Russia and the United States", which were frozen after the war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia last year, Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko has said.

June 10th, 2009 LAHORE - Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said the US move to send 21,000 extra troops to war-ravaged Afghanistan could have serious implications for his country. "Pakistan has talked through political and military ways at all levels to the stakeholders that transferring the problem from Afghanistan to Pakistan will not help resolve the issue," he told reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday.

April 29th, 2009 Britain to send 700 extra troops to AfghanistanLONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he'll temporarily send 700 extra troops to Afghanistan to boost security for August elections. Brown told lawmakers that Britain will increase its forces in Afghanistan from 8,300 to 9,000, but will reduce numbers to current levels by November.

April 29th, 2009 CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that his government will send 450 extra troops to beef up security in troubled Afghanistan. However, there will be no combat troops among the latest contingent.

April 22nd, 2009 ALMATY - The US and Tajikistan have reached a deal on sending non-military cargo through Tajik territory to neighbouring Afghanistan, according to reports reaching here Tuesday. Within one or two months, the US should be allowed to send non-military supplies to Afghanistan, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said in Tajik capital Dushanbe.

April 20th, 2009 More planes for Russian base in KyrgyzstanBISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — The head of a Russian-dominated military alliance says more planes will be stationed at a base in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. Collective Security Treaty Organization secretary general Nikolai Bordyuzha gave no figures Monday on the planned increase at the Kant air base.

March 17th, 2009 KABUL - Moscow has no intention of sending a military contingent to Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. 'The international community is not asking the Russian Federation to send its military contingent to Afghanistan, nor is any such action being planned,' Lavrov said here during a one-day visit to Afghanistan.

March 17th, 2009 KABUL - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that his country was allowing cargo supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan through its territory to cooperate with the stabilisation of the war-torn country. 'Terrorism and drug trafficking are the main obstacles before the peace and stability in Afghanistan,' Lavrov told reporters through an interpreter in a press conference in Kabul.

February 18th, 2009 KRAKOW - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates Thursday asked NATO's European allies to do more in Afghanistan to balance new US pledge to send in 17,000 additional troops. Gates and his counterparts in NATO countries were holding informal discussions on Afghanistan.

February 14th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia is celebrating Sunday the 20th anniversary of the Soviet troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan. On Feb 15, 1989, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, nine years after they swept into the country.

February 8th, 2009 BISHKEK - The Kyrgyz parliamentary defence and security committee approved closure of the US military airbase in the country Monday. The hearings on the closure of the base will now be assessed by three parliamentary factions before going to a final debate in parliament.

January 29th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia could have the right to file a claim for part of treasure worth billions of dollars on board a British cargo ship sunk by a German submarine during World War II, experts said. The British cargo ship, torpedoed in June 1942 while carrying precious metals to the US to help pay for the Allied war effort under the Lend-Lease Act, was recently discovered by the Sub Sea Research company off Guyana.

January 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The US military plans to send three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan by mid-summer this year, Defence Secretary Robert Gates told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. He said there is a possibility of increasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan, though it has not been finalised.

January 23rd, 2009 TASHKENT - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that Moscow is ready to cooperate with NATO on the Afghan issue, even as he has welcomed US President Barack Obama's plans to review US policy in the war-ravaged nation. 'We hope the new US administration will have greater success than the previous one in resolving the Afghanistan issue,' Medvedev said Friday on the second day of his two-day visit to Uzbekistan.