KABUL - Russia has allowed the US and NATO allies to used a country airbase for transits to and from Afghanistan. Moscow had announced plans to create a NATO transit hub in Ulyanovsk city in March, and the decision was taken on June 25. A respective decree, signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, was published on Friday.

The NATO and Russian officials have sought to allay fears that the hub would turn out to be a full-fledged base.

"We have no intention to establish a base in Russia," the NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

"This is a pragmatic arrangement which allows us to transport non-lethal weapons and troops to benefit our operation in Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, the Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that: "There never has been and never will be a NATO military base in Ulyanovsk."

The hub would see the "transit of exclusively non-lethal cargoes," he added in the statement.

It comes after Pakistan blocked NATO supplies from crossing its territory after an NATO airstrike that Killed 24 Pakistani soldiers November last year. (Tolo News)