Pakistan’s parliament urges revision of relations

Pakistan has been an important but uneasy partner of the U.S. in the fight against terrorism, and has faced growing anti-Western sentiment at home.

Pakistan’s parliament early Saturday condemned the breach of sovereignty by the United States in its raid on terrorist leader Osama bin Laden earlier this month, reports said.

The lawmakers also recommended that an independent commission investigate the failures of Pakistan’s own security forces in the May 2 incident.

In a 10-hour session which started Friday and lasted until the early hours, both houses unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the US operation that killed bin Laden in a town 60 kilometres north of Islamabad.

The resolution, debated behind closed doors, also recommended revisiting the country’s military cooperation with the U.S., the Nation newspaper’s website reported.

Pakistan has been an important but uneasy partner of the U.S. in the fight against terrorism, and has faced growing anti-Western sentiment at home.

Strikes by U.S. unmanned aircraft against suspected targets in Pakistan have provoked a strong public reaction.

Saturday’s resolution called for the drone attacks to stop, or Pakistan would cease to allow supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan to transit through the country.

The majority of supplies to the international troops in land-locked Afghanistan are unloaded at Pakistani ports before being shipped over land.

The head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency told the parliamentarians Friday that his department bore responsibility for the failure to detect either bin Laden or the U.S. mission against him.

But the military was not to blame, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha said. The technology available was not state of the art, and communication with the CIA was poor, he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper online.

source-DPA