Pakistan, July 5: Trucks supplying Nato in Afghanistan crossed the border from Pakistan for the first time in seven months after Islamabad reopened transit routes. Pakistani officials said at least two Nato containers passed through the Chaman border point on Thursday.

Many more lorries remain in the southern Pakistani port of Karachi awaiting clearance to proceed.Pakistan reopened the routes after the US apologised for killing 24 of its soldiers on the border in November.

The decision will save the US hundreds of millions of dollars as it prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan. Pakistan has said it hopes the move will improve relations with the US and other Nato countries.

The seven month-long row over supply lines have been hugely damaging to relations between Pakistan and the US, with both sides unwilling to back down. It began in November last year when two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed as US air strikes hit two posts on the Afghan border.

At the time, Afghan officials said that Nato forces had been retaliating for gunfire from the Pakistani side of the volatile border, but Pakistan rejected that claim.

The supply route through Pakistan is crucial to the United States as it prepares to pull all combat troops out of Afghanistan by 2014.