Pakistan denies WikiLeaks disclosure it tolerates drone attacks

Dec 1, 2010, 11:21 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan Wednesday rejected disclosures by WikiLeaks that it has a tacit understanding with the US government about drone attacks in its semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan border.

'We have fundamental differences over the US drone attacks because they are against our sovereignty,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.

'We have been trying to convince the Obama administration to revisit the policy of drone attacks and stop them, as they are having long-term negative consequences.'

The whistleblower website WikiLeaks quoted a secret cable sent by former US ambassador in Islamabad, Anne Patterson, that Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had promised to tolerate the strikes.

She said Gilani rejected a suggestion by Interior Minister Rehman Malik that the drone strikes should be temporarily stopped during a military offensive against Taliban forces in 2009.

'Malik suggested we hold off alleged predator attacks until after the Bajaur operation. The PM (Prime Minister) brushed aside Rehman's remarks and said 'I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it,'' she wrote.

The ambassador added a note saying the strikes have been front-page news in Pakistan, but the media was reporting that the targets were nests of Arab fighters.

Pakistan has been publicly asking the US to stop the strikes and formally lodged protests in the past, but it has been suspected that local intelligence agencies helped identify targets.

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