Pakistan to NATO: Take us into confidence on Afghan operations

RAWALPINDI - Pakistan Thursday urged the US-led NATO forces to take it into confidence before launching operations in areas adjacent to its borders in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s army should be taken into confidence before launching any offensive by US-led coalition troops at areas, adjacent to Pakistan’s border, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani told a visiting NATO commander, Online news agency reported, quoting sources.

The coalition forces should ensure that no terrorist or extremist enters in Pakistan’s area during the operation, Kayani told Lt Gen William B. Caldwell, commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan.

The remarks come as NATO and the Afghan army are planning their biggest joint offensive since the beginning of the Afghan war in Helmand and other areas.

The Helmand province, located in southwestern Afghanistan, is the world’s largest opium-producing region, responsible for over 40 percent of the world’s total production.

Kayani and Caldwell discussed the planned offensive, the security situation in Afghanistan and the new US for the war-torn nation, military sources said.

Relations between the Pakistani army and NATO as well as the training of Pakistani army

officers by NATO were also discussed, the sources added.

Pakistan has been repeatedly complaining about the continuing US drone strikes against the Taliban in its North and South Waziristan areas along the Afghan border that have claimed some 700 lives since they began in mid-2008.

Pakistan has also asked for drone technology to enable it conduct the strikes to stem criticism of the attacks at home but the US has invariably turned this down.

In a concession of sorts, US Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, during a visit here last month, announced that Washington would provide unarmed reconnaissance drones to Pakistan to enable closer surveillance of the border areas.