NATO troops leave quake-hit Pakistan

The 170-member NATO contingent, which left on late Thursday, included both light engineers and paramedics.

A contingent of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) troops has returned to their respective countries on completion of their mission in quake-hit Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, a NATO spokesman said on Friday.

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"The 170-member NATO contingent, which left on late Thursday, included both light engineers and paramedics," Major Eric Bruijn told a news agency in Islamabad.

A team of 1,000 NATO light engineers and paramedics arrived in Bagh district of Kashmir region in last November to assist the Pakistani government in its relief and reconstruction efforts following the October 8, 2005 earthquake, which killed over 75,000 people.

While thousands of people in Kashmir praised NATO's relief operations and medical services, a controversy surfaced when the mainstream opposition parties, including the Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), criticised the military alliance's presence in Pakistan and described it as detrimental to country's security interests.

After this scathing criticism, the government decided not to extend the stay of NATO troops beyond a 90-day period, expiring in the middle of February.

"We still have some 700 troops left in Kashmir who will return to their respective countries by middle of February," Bruijn said.

Some 130 doctors, nurses and support staff from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, France, Portugal and Britain, who had formed a multinational NATO hospital in Kashmir, left Pakistan last Tuesday.

The hospital treated approximately 5,000 patients and conducted 159 operations during its stay in Pakistan.