Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pakistan may pull out of NATO summit on Afghanistan over drone attacks



In spite of the fact that the Pakistani parliament has passed several motions demanding that drone attacks cease the U.S. has recently struck a target in the tribal territories. Pakistan has also made stopping the attacks a condition for reopening supply routes through Pakistan to Afghanistan. Yet the attacks continue.

Now it may be that Pakistan will protest by not attending a key NATO summit. About the recent attack the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:. "Such attacks are in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations," However Moazzam Khan a ministry spokesperson said that no decision had been made as to whether to attend the NATO conference on May 20-21 in Chicago. Pakistan had earlier stayed away from a conference in Bonn to protest the U.S. killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a border incident.

Recent talks in Pakistan to resolve issues between Pakistan and the U.S. have not been successful. The U.S. is holding up billions of dollars in aid owed to pay for Pakistani actions against terrorists. No payments have been made since 2010. This debt is used as leverage to force Pakistan to accede to U.S. demands. For more see this article. Yet a standoff remains between the two countries.

No comments:

US will bank Tik Tok unless it sells off its US operations

  US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a CNBC interview that the Trump administration has decided that the Chinese internet app ...