Pakistan says it would not reopen NATO's key supply route to Afghanistan despite US apology for a recent deadly cross-border incursion, Press TV reported.
Pakistan blocked the NATO supply route to Afghanistan for the eighth successive day on Thursday.
Pakistani officials have said the key border post will stay closed in the coming days in retaliation to a recent NATO attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers at an outpost near the Afghan border.
The closure continues despite a formal apology by the US Ambassador to Islamabad Anne Patterson for the incursions and violations. The development came after NATO admitted that its two helicopters had entered the Pakistani airspace.
Senior political and military officials in Islamabad had reportedly stressed that US-led forces should accept responsibility and apologize for their recent violation of Pakistan's airspace.
Reports say hundreds of NATO vehicles, including tankers and containers are parked in different parts of northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border. At least 55 NATO fuel tankers have been ambushed by militants over the past week.
Pakistan blocked the major supply route to protest non-UN-sanctioned attacks by US-led forces and aircrafts against the country last week.
The ban, however, has not stopped US forces from carrying out more unauthorized attacks in the Pakistani territory. In the most recent of such attacks, a US drone bombing killed at least four people in Pakistan on Thursday.
Pakistan's government insists the non-UN-sanctioned drone attacks against its soil by the US are not justified. Islamabad foreign ministry says the unauthorized strikes are neither justified nor understandable.
"We believe that they are counter-productive and also a violation of our sovereignty," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters on Thursday.
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