Pakistan calls for end to U.S. drone attacks
Source: Washington Post
Pakistan calls for end to U.S. drone attacks
By Richard Leiby, Thursday, April 12, 2:04 PM
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Parliament unanimously demanded Thursday that the United States end its long campaign of drone strikes inside Pakistani territory, a vital component of the Obama administration’s strategy against al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.
But lawmakers, acting after weeks of fractious debate, tacitly allowed the passage of oil, food and other non-lethal goods across the country’s borders to supply NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan has barred those NATO convoys for several months in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border outposts.
Bowing to public anger over the war in Afghanistan, drone attacks and other elements of U.S. policy, some 440 lawmakers supported the recommendations of a national security committee that set out to reconfigure what it called Pakistan’s “terms of engagement” with the United States. The two countries entered into a counterterrorism partnership shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“Pakistan’s sovereignty shall not be compromised,” Parliament declared Thursday in adopting the new policy guidelines.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pakistan-calls-for-end-to-us-drone-attacks/2012/04/12/gIQAN1ZFDT_story.html?wprss=rss_world
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