Pak PM warns Afghan on cross-border attacks

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan will not allow anyone to interfere in its internal affairs, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Sunday after Afghanistan's leader said cross-border attacks on militants were justified.
Gilani was reacting to comments made earlier in the day by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who threatened to attack Taleban insurgents on Pakistani soil, saying his war-torn country had a right to do so out of ‘self-defence.’
‘We will neither interfere in the internal affairs of any country, nor will we allow anyone to interfere in our affairs,’ Gilani told private ARY-OneWorld television.
‘Such statements will not help in the normalisation of friendly relations between the two countries and will hurt the sentiments of people on both sides of the border,’ he said, however adding he wanted ‘friendly’ ties with Kabul.
Earlier, Karzai -- in his toughest comments yet on stamping out militancy along the border -- said Afghanistan had ‘the right to destroy terrorist nests on the other side of the border in self-defence.’
‘When they cross the border from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and coalition troops, it gives us exactly the right to go back and do the same,’ Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.
Afghanistan and Pakistan, both key US allies in the ‘war on terror’, have bickered for years about the extremist violence growing in both countries, with each accusing the other of not doing enough to fight it.
Karzai has repeatedly accused the Pakistani government of failing to prevent insurgents active in the tribal zone from slipping into Afghanistan.
Gilani countered that Pakistan was taking all possible measure to stop militant activity across the long, rugged frontier.
‘We are not fighting this war for America but it is our own war and we want to eliminate extremism and terrorism which is the root cause of all evils,’ he said.
Pakistan has strongly opposed any foreign military action on its soil, saying it would amount to a violation of its sovereignty.
Last week, Islamabad protested a US-led coalition air strike which killed 11 Pakistani soldiers in the Mohmand tribal region, on the border with Afghanistan.
US officials have said the coalition was legitimately targeting militants but has offered to conduct a joint investigation with Pakistan.
Pakistan has been combating hundreds of Taleban and Al Qaeda militants who fled over the border from Afghanistan after the US-led invasion that ousted the Taleban from government in late 2001.
Insurgents fighting the Afghan government and the NATO- and US-led forces shoring it up regularly cross into the tribal zones, where they find refuge as well as a steady supply of weapons, ammunition and new recruits, experts say.