ISLAMABAD: The Special Committee of the Federal Cabinet met here on Wednesday to discuss NATO supply resumption, Budget 2012-13 under the head of PM Yousaf Raza Gilani.

The Special cabinet Committee meeting will be followed by meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) during the current week, which will consider Rs. 825.2 billion Public Sector Development Programme (2012-13) recommended by Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) on May 10.

The NFC meeting, which be chaired by the Prime Minister, will also be attended by the governors, provinicial chief ministers, including Gilgit-Baltistan and the Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

The Federal Cabinet is expected Wednesday to discuss President Zardari attending talks on Afghanistan in Chicago and the lifting of a blockade on NATO supplies.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is to chair the meeting which will take place after the cabinet's defence committee cleared the way for President Asif Ali Zardari to attend next week's NATO summit.

That meeting also authorised officials to conclude negotiations on new terms and conditions for resuming the transit of fuel and other non-lethal items required by NATO troops in their decade-long fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the prime minister's office said.

Islamabad shut its Afghan border crossings to NATO after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26 as relations with the United States, already frayed by the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, plunged into their worst ever crisis.

Pakistan's attendance in Chicago, where NATO leaders meet Sunday and Monday, would ease its international isolation and could boost its leverage over the future of Afghanistan, as Western countries pull out their combat forces by 2014.

Islamabad boycotted the last major talks on Afghanistan, held in Bonn in December.

The prime minister's office said overnight that Pakistan would "continue to remain engaged" with the United States on both issues.

Analysts say Pakistan had no choice but acquiesce to immense international pressure to reopen the border with US cash needed to help boost its meagre state coffers with the government seeking re-election within a year.

Washington said both countries had made "considerable progress" on ending the blockade, which has halted fuel and supply trucks from the southern port city of Karachi to two Afghan border crossings.

"We will continue to work on this throughout the week. Obviously, it'll be a wonderful signal if we can get it done by the time of the summit," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. AFP