WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - In the end it was a meetingin a nondescript conference room in Chicago that finally set inmotion the long-awaited US apology to Pakistan last weekending a seven-month impasse over NATO supply routes for theAfghan war.
The meeting in late May followed months of clamoring byIslamabad, images of flag-draped coffins on TV, and widespreadoutcry from Pakistanis incensed by the US air attack thatkilled 24 of their soldiers on the Afghan border last November.
The breakthrough, in which Islamabad reopened supply routesinto Afghanistan and Washington yielded to months of Pakistanidemands to apologize for the border deaths, was praised as aprelude to improved ties between two nations whose securityalliance had lapsed into mutual suspicion and hostility.
After US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's discussionswith Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in the cavernousChicago conference center where world leaders met for a NATOsummit, Clinton instructed Thomas Nides, a top deputy back inWashington, to do what it took to find a solution ensuring NATOcould once again supply the war in Afghanistan via Pakistan.