PESHAWAR, May 26: The bus service between Peshawar and Jalalabad resumed after 27 years with a bus, carrying 22 passengers leaving on Friday for the Afghan city.

The bus, decorated with Pakistan and Afghan flags, started its six-hour run at 11:30am from a bus terminal near the Karkhano Bazaar on the Jamrud Road.

An official at the inauguration ceremony said that work on a modern bus terminal had started and it would be completed soon.

The bus service was delayed twice. It was to start on March 20 and then on April 15 but the inauguration was put off because of bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The bus service was suspended in 1979 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The inaugural ceremony was a low-key event with no federal minister or a senior official present. The Afghan Consul-General in Peshawar, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, also missed the opening ceremony. The passengers were seen off by a low ranking Afghan consulate official and a federal joint secretary.