Pakistani foreign minister to meet Nato chief

BRUSSELS: Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen will meet with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday, the alliance said, amid a row over a Nato helicopter strike inside Pakistan.

Qureshi will visit the transatlantic alliance's headquarters in Brussels on the sidelines of a two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). A Nato statement said Saturday there would be no press briefing after the talks with Rasmussen.

Pakistan blocked a land route for Nato convoys carrying supplies to neighbouring Afghanistan on Thursday after officials blamed a cross-border Nato helicopter attack for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers.

The Khyber pass at Torkham is on one of the main Nato supply routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where more than 152,000 US and Nato forces are fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.

Nato said its aircraft had entered Pakistani airspace Thursday in self-defence and killed "several armed individuals" after the air crews believed they had been fired upon from Pakistani territory.

It was the fourth such strike this week by Nato helicopters pursuing militants into Pakistan, in actions that have been condemned by Islamabad.