Pakistani PM: US promises not to repeat Bin Laden raid

Yousuf Raza Gilani says Hillary Clinton has assured him there will be no more unilateral raids, contradicting US officials’ claims Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, says he has received US assurances there will be no repeat of the unilateral raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May. Gilani’s remarks, in an interview with the Guardian, contradict assertions by the US president, Barack Obama, and other American officials that US forces would take similar action against other al-Qaida leaders if necessary. Gilani was speaking in London at a time when Pakistani relations with the west, particularly the US, are at a low in the wake of the raid on Bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on 2 May. After the special forces operation, US officials voiced suspicions that Bin Laden must have had a network of local supporters, possibly inside the Pakistani state, while Pakistani leaders were outraged not to have been consulted over the raid inside their territory. “Since we were sharing information with US and there was a tremendous relationship with the CIA and ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], therefore we could have done a joint operation in Abbottabad, but it didn’t happen. Therefore we had a lot of reservations,” Gilani said. He added: “They have assured us in future there will be no unilateral actions in Pakistan, and there would be co-operation between both agencies.” The Pakistani prime minister said he had received the assurance personally from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. In her public statements, however, Clinton has declared the US would strike unilaterally against other top militants if others did not. She said in May : “We’ve made it clear to people around the world that if we locate someone who has been part of the al-Qaida leadership, then you get him or we will get him.” Speaking to the BBC just before his visit to Britain the same month, Obama was equally blunt on the issue. He said: “We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is planning to kill our people or our allies’ people – we can’t allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action.” On Thursday, however, Gilani said any repeat of the Abbottabad raid would be “totally unacceptable”. “Public opinion would further aggravate against the United States and you cannot fight a war without the support of the masses. You need the masses to support military actions against militants,” he said. He said another raid would damage “not only our relationship, but also our common objective, to fight against militants. We are fighting a war and if we fail that means that it’s not good for the world. We can’t afford losing.” After the raid against Bin Laden, the Pakistani government said it had stopped the US launching drones from its territory in pursuit of militants in tribal areas. Nevertheless, drone strikes on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan have continued. “We don’t allow our bases to be used. They have other bases they use,” Gilani said. Asked where those bases were, he replied: “I don’t know. You ask the Americans. This is a question to put to them.” The prime minister added: “Drone attacks are against our strategy too, because we have been isolating the militants from the local population and when there are drone attacks they get united again.” Pakistan United States Osama bin Laden Hillary Clinton Julian Borger guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 21, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.