I slamabad: The Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Pakistan has explicated that US drone strikes against militants inside its territory must stop but Washington is not listening.
“On drones, the language is clear: a clear cessation of drone strikes,” Hina Rabbani Khar said.
“I maintain the position that we’d told them categorically before. But they did not listen. I hope their listening will improve,” she added.
Khar’s sharp comments on the drone strikes came ahead of a two-day visit to Islamabad by the United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman.
Ambassador Grossman was due to hold bilateral meetings with Pakistani officials and take part in a core group meeting with officials from bothPakistanandAfghanistan, where theUnited Statesis hoping to revive stalled peace talks with the Taliban.
Khar said other methods should be used to take out militants in the border region betweenAfghanistanandPakistan.
“We have to look at effective tools which are mutually acceptable. The cost of using tools which are not mutually acceptable is far, far too high. We’re looking at alternatives,” she said, without elaborating.
The commander of the frontline corps inPakistan’s northwest told Reuters last week that one alternative would be for the United States to share intelligence so that its ally’s F-16 fighter jets could target militants there.
