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Pakistan

Drone attacks unacceptable, Pakistan tells US

Dunya News

Pakistan Thursday protested in strong terms to US over drone attacks.

Pakistan Foreign Office summoned a senior official of US embassy and protested over drone attacks on Pakistan territory.In a letter handed over to the US official Pakistan said the drone attacks were not acceptable in any case.It said the drone attacks were a violation of international laws and an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty.The protest came up after the stepped up drone attacks during the last one week.Many people were killed in these attacks in North Waziristan on Eid days.There were 24 such attacks in 2012. Since this year, at least 175 people have reportedly been killed in such strikes.The al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network in North Waziristan, blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan, is one of the thorniest issues between Islamabad and Washington.Washington has long demanded that Pakistan take action against the Haqqanis, whom the United States accused of attacking the US embassy in Kabul last September and acting like the “veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence.Pakistan has in turn demanded that Afghan and US forces do more to stop Pakistani Taliban crossing the Afghan border to relaunch attacks on its forces.There has been a dramatic increase in US drone strikes in Pakistan since May, when a Nato summit in Chicago could not strike a deal to end a six-month blockade on convoys transporting supplies to coalition forces in Afghanistan.On July 3 however, Islamabad agreed to end the blockade after the United States apologised for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in botched air strikes last November.The latest attack, which came after a lull of about three weeks, was in the same region where a drone strike on June 4 killed 15 militants, including senior al Qaeda figure Abu Yahya al-Libi.