Foreign plane forced to land in Pakistan

Islamabad, April 25 (IANS) The Pakistan Air Force Wednesday forced a Russian-made cargo plane belonging to a foreign military to land at the Karachi airport after it violated Pakistani airspace, media reports said.

Geo News, however, did not mention the name of the country to which the plane belonged.

The cargo plane took off from the Bagram air base in Afghanistan and was supposed to fly to the Al Maktoum international airport in the United Arab Emirates.

Sources said such kind of cargo planes are used to carry NATO supplies to Afghanistan.

The plane was checked and the crew interrogated.

According to Xinhua, authorities received information that it was carrying military equipment without clearance from Pakistan's civil aviation department.

Pakistan's parliament earlier this month approved guidelines for the future relationship with the US and NATO. It recommended that NATO should not be allowed to use Pakistani airspace and land routes for transporting arms to Afghanistan. It, however, allowed the transport of non-military items like food and medicines.

Pakistan closed the supply line for NATO forces in Afghanistan in November after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an air strike on a Pakistan Army border post.