Cabinet weighs up formal UNSC complaint over NATO strike

Attending Bonn moot on Afghanistan also under review after the air strike.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan is considering lodging a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) against Saturday’s airstrike by NATO forces on check posts in the Mohmand tribal region.

The proposal will be at the top of the agenda when the federal cabinet meets in Lahore on Tuesday morning (today) for an emergency session, amid growing anger across Pakistan over what officials here have called a “gruesome” attack.

Scheduled to be chaired by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the cabinet will also decide whether to participate in an international conference on the future of Afghanistan planned in the German city of Bonn for next week, top officials said.

“We will use all the available national and international forums to condemn the attack…we won’t let it go easily. The blood that spills is ours,” said a federal minister, confirming that approaching the UNSC is among the options on the table.

The pre-dawn multiple strikes by NATO gunships has sparked fresh tensions between Islamabad and Washington with Pakistan halting supplies to international forces based in Afghanistan and ordering the closure of a key air base allegedly being used by the US to operate drone predators.

Another official, who is privy to the decision likely to be taken at the cabinet meeting, said that since the Afghan war was sanctioned by the UNSC and any hot pursuit or surgical strikes inside Pakistan were not allowed, Islamabad believed the move would put “legal and moral” pressure on the US.

Last week an adviser to the prime minister told Parliament that Pakistan was collecting figures for casualties caused by US drones in the country’s tribal areas, with which Pakistan would approach a UN human rights panel.

Bonn conference

Officials said that the cabinet would also take a decision regarding its participation in the Bonn conference, a planned gathering of world leaders on December 5 to discuss the decade-old war in Afghanistan.

A cabinet committee on defence that met immediately after the attacks maintained that Pakistan can pull itself out of the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and there were reports that Islamabad might boycott the conference. A final decision, however, is still pending, and officials confirmed that the cabinet would ponder the matter at the meeting.

Meanwhile, the US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said in a press briefing that Pakistan has indicated that it is reconsidering attending the conference but it was in that country’s own interest to participate.

“The US-Pakistan relationship has weathered many storms. We’re stressing on this relationship and this relationship is in our shared national security interests,” Toner said.

Confirming that there will be two investigations into the incident, he referred reporters back to the department of defence on when this will be completed.

Security during Muharram

According to a spokesperson for Gilani, the meeting was also set to discuss the security situation during Muharram and Interior Minister Rehman Malik might brief cabinet on possible threats from extremist organisations.

Malik on Sunday said there were credible intelligence reports that hardline outfits including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi might strike in major cities such as Karachi and Lahore.

(With additional reporting by Huma Imtiaz in Washington)

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2011.