Pakistan summoned the US Ambassador Cameron Munter on Friday and lodged a strong protest over a drone strike in a tribal region, which killed at least 41 people, the Foreign Ministry said. Pakistan also pulled out of the trilateral meeting involving US and Afghanistan as a protest over drone attack in Waziristan.
The statement said that in pursuance of the directives of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the US Ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office by Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and a strong protest was lodged regarding Thursday’s drone attack that caused many casualties. Munter was categorically conveyed that such strikes were not only ‘unacceptable’ but also constituted ‘a flagrant violation of humanitarian norms and law’. ‘It was evident that the fundamentals of our relations need to be revisited’, the Foreign Office said.
‘Pakistan should not be taken for granted nor treated as a client State. It was for the White House and the State Department to hold back those who have been trying to veer Pakistan-US relationship away from the track’, it added.
Munter was also conveyed that under the current circumstances, Pakistan would not be able to participate in the trilateral meeting between Afghanistan-Pakistan-US, proposed by the US in Brussels on March 26, 2011.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar was initially expected to participate in the trilateral meeting.
Munter said that he understood clearly that this was not a proforma demarche. He will rush to Washington to convey Pakistan‘s message to the US administration at the highest levels.
Thursday’s attack was the most lethal drone strike to hit the lawless region of North Waziristan since August 2008 when the covert campaign escalated in the areas bordering Afghanistan, and the seventh such attack in nine days.
Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders have already strongly condemned Thursday’s drone strike against a militant hideout in North Waziristan tribal region and demanded an apology and explanation from the US.
Civilians and police were among those killed when US missiles ploughed into a militant training compound in Datta Khel town, 40 kilometres west of Miranshah, the main town in tribal North Waziristan.
