NATO has transported some 2,700 tonnes of relief supplies to the country, making it the largest aid airlifter, and engineers and doctors were also sent to help, said alliance chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"At the request of the government of Pakistan, NATO has also played its part in helping the victims of the terrible earthquake of October 8," he told NATO foreign ministers gathered in Brussels.

"NATO is not, and does not aspire to be, a humanitarian relief organisation but we have been pleased to make a contribution in this difficult period," De Hoop Scheffer said.

"Our personnel will come home on schedule early next year," he added.

A spokesman said the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would end its mission in Pakistan at the end of January or early February.

The earthquake, the worst in Pakistan's history, killed nearly 74,000 people and made more than three million homeless in Pakistani Kashmir and parts of the North West Frontier Province.

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