News Detail
No secret deal with the US, says Pakistani Foreign Minister
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that the government did not deviate from any parliamentary resolution by reopening ground supply lines to Nato forces in Afghanistan.
Khar’s comments came Wednesday as the federal cabinet formally approved its defence committee’s decision of restoring the ground supply routes.
Speaking at a press briefing in Islamabad, the foreign minister said that the US had formally tendered an unconditional apology to Pakistan over the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a US air raid on the Salala checkpost last year.
Khar said that Pakistan had not engaged in any ‘secret deal’ with the US for reopening the key supply routes.
The foreign minister further said that Pakistan had blocked the supplies to the Afghan-bound convoys for almost eight months only to have its principled stance accepted.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said she was sorry for the loss of life in a US air raid last year. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again,” Clinton had said.
Earlier in April, the parliament had unanimously approved its Parliamentary Committee on National Security’s (PCNS) guidelines for the country’s future ties with the US. The guidelines had also demanded an immediate cessation of drone attacks as well as an end to using Pakistani territory for transportation of arms and ammunition to the Nato forces in Afghanistan.
The 14-point recommendations had declared that Pakistan’s sovereignty should not be compromised and that the relationship with the US should be based on mutual respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of each other.--(DawnNews)
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