Pakistan urging ‘friends’ to pressurise US to end drone attacks: Gilani
April 14th, 2011 - 1:07 pm ICT by ANIIslamabad, April 14(ANI): Pakistan is urging friendly countries to exert diplomatic pressure on the Unites States to stop its deadly drone attacks in tribal areas.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that diplomatic channels were being used to exert pressure on Washington to halt the drone campaign.
The US will have to halt its drone campaign on Pakistan’s soil, said the prime minister, asserting that such strikes were counter-productive and undermined anti-terror efforts.
He reiterated that Pakistan was against US predator air strikes, which he said deviated from the government’s rational strategy to isolate terrorists from local tribal people.
“Whenever a missile was fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle, it worked to unite the militants and the tribal people,” the Daily Times quoted Gilani, as saying.
The prime minister’s remarks came just hours after a drone pounded Angoor Adda in South Waziristan, killing six people.
It was the first US drone strike in Pakistan since March 17, when a similar drone attack had killed over 40 civilians in North Waziristan Agency.
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir lodged a strong protest with US Ambassador Cameron Munter over the Angoor Adda drone attack, terming the predator strikes as a “core irritant in the counter-terror campaign.” (ANI)
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Tags: adda, air strikes, april 14, bashir, cameron munter, diplomatic channels, diplomatic pressure, drone, irritant, islamabad, national assembly, north waziristan agency, rational strategy, raza, salman, south waziristan, terror campaign, tribal areas, unmanned aerial vehicle, yousaf