PESHAWAR, March 17: A bus of the Pakistan-Afghanistan friendship service left Peshawar for Jalalabad on Friday on trial run. The bus painted with Pakistan and Afghanistan flags started its three-hour run from Peshawar to Jalalabad at 9am from the press club. The bus service between the two cities is being resumed after 27 years.

The provincial transport minister was scheduled to see off the passengers including government officials, transporters and media persons, but he could not make it to the venue.

Regular bus service between the two countries would start from April 15, said Zikria Khan, chairman of the United Bus Service, which won the contract to run five buses a day from Peshawar to Jalalabad, the capital city of the Afghanistan eastern Nangarhar province.

Transport officials of both the governments had decided in their meeting on Feb 22 held in Islamabad to start the bus service from Peshawar on March 20. They had also decided to run another bus service from Quetta to Kandahar after the success of the first venture.

But the service was delayed owing to manufacturing washrooms in five buses and special paint for painting Pakistan and Afghanistan flags on the buses, said Mr Khan. Refreshments and lunch boxes would be distributed among the passengers of the 37-seater bus, said the company official.