‘Drone strikes result in trust de cit’

DAVOS — Pakistan's prime minister yesterday said there was "a trust de cit" between Islamabad and Washington as he criticised the resumption of US drone strikes on his country's tribal belt.

Speaking the day after over 100,000 people massed in Karachi to protest the strikes, Yusuf Raza Gilani said they only served to bolster militants.

"Drones are counter-productive. We have very ably isolated insurgents from the local tribes. When there are drone attacks that earns sympathy for them again," Gilani told reporters at the Davos forum.

"It makes the job of the political leadership and the military very dif cult. We have never allowed the drone attacks and we have always maintained that they are unacceptable, illegal and counterproductive."

Relations between the US and Pakistan have deteriorated sharply over the last year, with Islamabad furious about the surprise deadly raid on Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad last year.

The two sides have also been at loggerheads over a US air strike in November in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

The US halted drone strikes on Pakistan soil in the immediate aftermath of that strike but they have since resumed.

US of cials say the northwestern tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban ghting in Afghanistan, armed groups plotting attacks on the West, Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan and other foreign ghters.

Gilani said that Pakistan now wanted to agree new rules of engagement with the US.

"The unilateral action taken in Abbottabad, that was not liked in any quarter... We need assurances that such a unilat- eral action will not be repeated in the future. There is a trust de cit."

The prime minister said it was in both countries' interests to co-operate as partners and Pakistan had paid a high price at the hands of armed groups.

"We want to work together and we are ghting against terrorists. We have paid a huge price for that."

Insurgents largely based in the tribal border lands have carried out bomb and gun attacks killing nearly 4,800 people across Pakistan since July 2007. — AFP