Supply Lines Cast Shadow at NATO Meeting on Afghan War CHICAGO - President Obama was struggling to manage key shifts in the relationships with his two South Asia counterparts on Sunday, as a deal to reopen supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan appeared stalled just as Mr. Obama began talks on ending the NATO alliance's combat role in the Afghan war. Mr. Obama remained at loggerheads with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, refusing to meet one-on-one with him even though Mr. Zardari flew to the NATO summit meeting in Chicago ostensibly to finalize the supply line agreement. In contrast, Mr. Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, whose relationship has been at turns awkward or tense over the past four years, huddled on Sunday morning to discuss how to make progress together in reconciliation talks with the Taliban. It was a measure of just how bad things have gotten between the United States and Pakistan that Mr. Obama's relationship with Mr. Karzai - which has been rocky since Mr. Obama came into office vowing to end what he viewed as former President George W. Bush's coddling of the mercurial Afghan leader - actually seemed relatively stable on Sunday. The two men, fresh off Mr. Obama's unannounced trip to Kabul this month to sign a strategic partnership agreement, have been presenting a more unified front than in times past, when Mr. Karzai has berated American troops, threatened to join the Taliban and chastised the American-led NATO mission that is set to end in 2014. "I want to express my appreciation for the hard work that President Karzai has done," Mr. Obama said after their meeting, standing next to him. He recognizes the enormous sacrifices American troops have made. Mr. Obama quickly added: "We recognize the hardships that Afghans have been through many years of war." Mr. Karzai, for his part, said he would work to make sure that Afghanistan is not a "burden on the shoulders of our friends" in the international community. "Things are definitely easing right now," one Obama administration official said. The official credited the strategic partnership agreement, which sets out the terms for a lasting relationship between the countries after 2014, and which he said had given Mr. Karzai a level of reassurance that the United States and NATO would not abandon Afghanistan once combat troops leave the country. On the Pakistani front, however, things were less relaxed. American and Pakistani officials had expressed optimism last week that an agreement on re-establishing supply routes was imminent. Negotiators were narrowing their differences after three weeks of intense deliberations, they said, and it was hoped that an invitation for Pakistan to attend the summit would engender the good will needed to close the gap between the two sides. The invitation was accepted, and Mr. Zardari arrived in Chicago on Saturday. But a deal on the supply lines remained elusive, and Mr. Obama would not meet directly with Mr. Zardari without it, American officials said. The supply lines, through which about 40 percent of NATO's nonlethal supplies had passed, were closed last November after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in American airstrikes along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. "When NATO extended the invitation, we thought it would move the Pakistanis off the dime," a senior American official said. Without the deal, "it's going to be really uncomfortable" for Mr. Zardari at the summit, the official said, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the talks. Pakistan is now asking for "upward of $5,000," another American official said. Pakistan was also seeking an indemnity waiver in case American cargo was damaged, as well as more money to repair road damage caused by the heavy trucks traveling over Pakistani highways. "We're not anticipating necessarily closing out those negotiations this weekend," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, on Saturday evening during a briefing with reporters aboard en route to Chicago. But the senior American official said on Saturday that if a few trucks were allowed through in an effort to show good faith for a broader deal, it "did not pass the laugh test." Instead, it only further exasperated American officials who had believed they were on the brink of breaking the six-month impasse, the official said. The coalition does not need the supply lines "to be open to support the campaign. But they're helpful to us in sending home our equipment," Marine Gen. John R. Allen was quoted as saying in an interview Sunday with Reuters. We don't want an agreement fast, we want an agreement that's right. So we're going to take the time to get it right. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Salman Masood from Islamabad.