WASHINGTON, May 16: The US State Department said on Wednesday that Pakistan has “endorsed the conclusion” but has not yet signed a deal to reopen Nato supply routes to Afghanistan.

Also on Wednesday, the US media reported that under the proposed agreement the United States would have to pay additional $365 million a year to Pakistan for using the routes.

If the agreement is signed, the routes will reopen after nearly six months as they were closed on Nov 26 when a US air raid killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in Salala.

“Our technical discussions with the Pakistanis are continuing. We have had some progress. We’ve also had some very helpful and positive political statements out of Pakistan, some political moves,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told a news briefing in Washington.

“While the Pakistani political leadership hasn’t yet authorised the reopening of the ground transportation routes, we understand that they did endorse the conclusion of the negotiations,” she added.

When a journalist asked how they could endorse the conclusion when the negotiations still continued, Ms Nuland said: “They have authorised their team to come to conclusion with our team. That doesn’t change the fact that we haven’t yet come to conclusion on all of the issues.”

She noted that there were a number of technical issues that both sides were still working through.

US and Pakistani experts have been negotiating the deal in Islamabad for the past three weeks.

“It is not done until it’s all done,” said Ms Nuland when a journalist suggested that the deal has been finalised.

The Pakistanis, she said, were sending “a political signal” to their own negotiating team that they would like to see this wrapped up.

“They see some urgency, we see some urgency, but the negotiators have to finish it.”

“Is the urgency to get it done by the Nato summit in Chicago next week?” asked a reporter. “The urgency is to be able to support Afghanistan from Pakistan,” Ms Nuland replied.

“If we can get it done by Chicago, it will send a powerful signal of support from Pakistan to Afghanistan and to its larger support for the Isaf mission.”

The US media reported that the Pakistanis were making two specific demands: arms and ammunitions cannot be transported through these routes and the US should release reimbursements of $2.1 billion from the Coalition Support Fund by the end of next month.

The media reports also claimed that Pakistan was apparently stepping back from the demand of an apology over the Salala incident.

The US media also reported that the US-led coalition in Afghanistan would pay Pakistan a still-to-be-fixed fee of $1,500 to $1,800 for each truck carrying supplies, which amounts to nearly $1 million a day.