DUSHANBE, Feb 6: Tajikistan said on Friday it was ready to allow US and Nato supplies for Afghanistan to transit across its territory, after neighbouring Kyrgyzstan ordered the closure of a vital US airbase.

The decision by the Kyrgyz government to shut down the Manas airbase has troubled Washington, which had used the facility as a vital route for flying in supplies for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said after meeting the US ambassador that his country was ready to allow supplies, including construction materials, medicines, fuel and water, to transit across its soil by road.

“Tajikistan is ready to offer the United States and Nato countries help with the transit of humanitarian and commercial supplies to Afghanistan,” he said in a statement.

Rakhmon said the supplies would be of a non-military nature and should be not just for the benefit of coalition forces.

“They should be destined not only for the military but it is also important they are used for the reconstruction of Afghanistan,” he added.

US ambassador Tracey Ann Jacobson said the transit would take place by land and would employ a new bridge over the Panj River funded by the US that opened in August 2007 and links the south of Tajikistan to Afghanistan.

She said that a delegation from the United States would soon visit Tajikistan to discuss the issue.

Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet republic that is currently experiencing severe electricity shortages, has a 1,340km-long border with Afghanistan.

The US has been seeking to increase the number of supply routes to Afghanistan as extremist attacks have plagued the main transport corridor through Pakistan.

Russia also announced on Friday that it would start allowing non-lethal US military supplies for Afghanistan to cross its territory. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in remarks broadcast by Vesti 24 television that Russia had agreed several days earlier with a US request to allow transit of non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan.—Agencies