Date:17/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/17/stories/2008061755931300.htm

International

Irresponsible statements, says Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan summoned the Afghan Ambassador to its Foreign Office on Monday to register protest against Afghan President Hamid Karazai’s threats to hunt down Taliban leaders in Pakistani territory.

Separately, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi described Mr. Karzai’s statements as “regrettable” and said Afghanistan must not make such “irresponsible threatening statements” seeing that both countries faced a common enemy.

Mr. Karzai warned at a press conference on Sunday that he would send Afghan troops to hunt down Taliban commander Beithullah Mehsud and the “other fellow”, Mullah Omar, inside Pakistan.

If the Taliban crossed over from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghan soil, it “exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same,” he said. “It is a two-way road, and Afghans are good at the two-way journey.”

Mr. Qureshi said it was “regrettable that such a statement was made at a time when the two sides had agreed to close the ranks” in the fight against terrorism.

“Here, I would also like to make it absolutely clear that Pakistan shall defend its territorial sovereignty.”

The only way to win the war against terrorism and extremism, he said, was by showing “full respect to the territorial sovereignty and non interference” in each others internal affairs.

This was the first time Mr. Karzai spoke so strongly against Pakistan, and his angry threats appear to have taken the government here by surprise.

The News speculated that the Afghan leader may have been speaking on behalf of the U.S., which has of late increased pressure on Pakistan with cross-border bombing raids in the tribal areas.

An aerial attack by coalition forces in the Mohamand agency last week that killed 13 Pakistani soliders including an officer, saw Pakistan reacting strongly against what it called “an act of aggression.”

But the U.S. said coalition troops had acted in self-defence against a “legitimate” target and had co-ordinated with the Pakistani military beforehand.