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Pakistan to boycott Afghan meeting over NATO attack
Source: Agencies |
November 30, 2011, Wednesday
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PAKISTAN pulled out of an upcoming meeting in Germany on the future of Afghanistan to protest against the deadly attack by US-led forces on its troops, widening the fallout yesterday from an incident that has sent ties between Washington and Islamabad into a tailspin.
Meanwhile, a top Pakistani army general called last Saturday's incident that killed 24 troops on the Afghan-Pakistan border a "deliberate act of aggression" by NATO forces and said the military had not decided whether to take part in an American investigation into it.
Both developments bode ill for future Pakistani cooperation with United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
NATO has described the incident as "tragic and unintended", and US officials have expressed their sympathies with the families of those who died.
The decision to skip next week's conference in Bonn, Germany, which has been a year in the planning, will trigger concerns in Washington and Kabul that Pakistan is withdrawing from international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan before and after the withdrawal of foreign combat forces in 2014.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Pakistan's reason for not attending, but that hoped it would reconsider. "They should still understand that the Afghanistan conference is a very important one. It's a very good opportunity to bring forward the political process," she said.
Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with Washington, has already closed its two crossings on the western border to trucks delivering supplies to NATO troops in landlocked Afghanistan and said it will review all cooperation with NATO and the US.
There have been conflicting versions of what led to the attack by NATO aircraft last Saturday, though most Afghan and Western accounts say it was likely a case of friendly fire, launched after a joint Afghan and US special forces team received fire from the Pakistan side of the border.
But Pakistan army General Ashfaq Nadeem yesterday called the incident a "deliberate act of aggression" and said it was "next to impossible that NATO" did not know they were attacking Pakistani forces.
Nadeem said the army had little faith that any investigation will get to the bottom of the incident and may not cooperate with it.
Meanwhile, a top Pakistani army general called last Saturday's incident that killed 24 troops on the Afghan-Pakistan border a "deliberate act of aggression" by NATO forces and said the military had not decided whether to take part in an American investigation into it.
Both developments bode ill for future Pakistani cooperation with United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
NATO has described the incident as "tragic and unintended", and US officials have expressed their sympathies with the families of those who died.
The decision to skip next week's conference in Bonn, Germany, which has been a year in the planning, will trigger concerns in Washington and Kabul that Pakistan is withdrawing from international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan before and after the withdrawal of foreign combat forces in 2014.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Pakistan's reason for not attending, but that hoped it would reconsider. "They should still understand that the Afghanistan conference is a very important one. It's a very good opportunity to bring forward the political process," she said.
Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with Washington, has already closed its two crossings on the western border to trucks delivering supplies to NATO troops in landlocked Afghanistan and said it will review all cooperation with NATO and the US.
There have been conflicting versions of what led to the attack by NATO aircraft last Saturday, though most Afghan and Western accounts say it was likely a case of friendly fire, launched after a joint Afghan and US special forces team received fire from the Pakistan side of the border.
But Pakistan army General Ashfaq Nadeem yesterday called the incident a "deliberate act of aggression" and said it was "next to impossible that NATO" did not know they were attacking Pakistani forces.
Nadeem said the army had little faith that any investigation will get to the bottom of the incident and may not cooperate with it.
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