Uzbekistan said today it would throw open a bridge seen as crucial for aid deliveries to Afghanistan and the United States invited Uzbek President Islam Karimov to Washington.
Aid agencies and officials had long been urging Uzbekistan to open the Friendship Bridge linking it to northern Afghanistan in order to speed humanitarian deliveries to the population of its war-weary neighbour.
"We discussed the humanitarian situation and in that regard the president confirmed that the bridge would open tomorrow after one last technical check," US Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a news conference in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
Uzbekistan has expressed concerns over the strength of the bridge, saying it needed checks before it could be used for aid deliveries. The United States recently sent military engineers to examine it.
"This (opening) will ease the flow of humanitarian aid into Afghanistan and I thanked the president for this decision," Mr Powell said after talks with Mr Karimov. Powell is on a tour of allies in the US-led war on terrorism.
Mr Karimov said the state commission would meet tomorrow to give its final approval for the opening. He also said it would decide arrangements for infrastructure and customs points.
The Uzbek president added that the opening of the bridge had political, as well as economic and humanitarian, significance.
Uzbekistan's southern Termez port has provided a major route for aid agencies moving supplies by barge into Afghanistan, but Uzbek authorities had been reluctant to open the bridge across the Amu Darya river without adequate security guarantees.
Uzbekistan closed the bridge five years ago to stop violence and Islamic fundamentalism spilling over the border when the hardline Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan.