Drone attacks on pause

The CIA has stopped firing missiles at militants in Pakistan since last month’s deadly Nato airstrikes along the Afghan border so as not to “aggravate” already strained ties with Islamabad, the chief of Pakistan’s senate defencee committee said on Tuesday.The 33-day pause is the longest since the programme began in 2004, according to the Long War Journal, a website that tracks the strikes.Tensions between Pakistan and the United States are at their lowest ebb in years following the Nov.26 airstrikes at the Pakistani army border outpost that killed 24 soldiers.The Pakistani army responded by closing its border with Afghanistan to trucks carrying US and Nato war supplies. It is demanding a complete review of its relationship with Washington.Javed Ashraf Qazi, the defence committee chief, said he believed the pause in attacks was because the US “does not want to aggravate the situation any further.”Still, Qzai, a former army general who gets high-level briefings because of his position on the committee, said he believed that if the United States had a “high-level” target in its sights then, “I think they would go ahead” and launch a strike. “If they do so, the results could get worse,” he said.Pakistan has told the UN Security Council that the Nov.26 Nato attack on its two military check posts constituted a transgression of its territorial integrity and a flagrant violation of the UN Charter.Speaking in the Security Councilís debate on the report of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Pakistan’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN, Raza Bashir Tarar cited UN Secretary General’s report, which rightly terms Pakistan’s bilateral relations with Afghanistan “paramount in furthering peace, reconciliation and stability,” according to a message received in Islamabad from New York.He emphasised that Pakistan is committed to peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan.Pakistan, he said, greatly values UNAMA’s role in co-ordinating a comprehensive international effort in Afghanistan. Pakistan hoped that the review of UNAMA’s mandate would enable the UN to make more meaningful contributions to peace and development of Afghanistan, he said.Rejecting speculative statements, he said that such blame game should stop forthwith as it would vitiate the atmosphere and erode mutual trust.Pakistan, Tarar added, would contribute, as effectively as possible, in an environment free from recrimination and blame-game and would strive to build relations on the basis of mutual respect and trust.He said Pakistan has never resorted to blame-game, even when militants from across the border attacked Pakistani troops and innocent civilians.  “Pakistan cannot be held responsible for the problems and the challenges afflicting Afghanistan,” he said.Separately a US Senate report released on Tuesday said that in the last two years, the United States has reduced its reliance on Pakistan for supplying its troops  in Afghanistan from 90 per cent to 29 per cent.The report by the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, however, also recognises Pakistan’s significance in bringing stability to the South and Central Asian region and urges the US administration to speed up the implementation of a few “demonstration projects,” such as using its convening power to open a transport corridor between Central Asia and the port of Gwadar.“Of all Afghanistan?s neighbours, the greatest focus has rightly been on Pakistan, whose internal dynamics have the most profound effect on regional stability. But what happens in Central Asia will also affect the outcome in Afghanistan,” the report notes.Pakistan’s government and army have long publicly protested the US drone programme, but in private have given their consent. The attacks are very unpopular among ordinary Pakistanis, who generally regard them as an unacceptable breach of sovereignty. American officials do not comment on the drone programme in public.