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No deal with Taliban, says FO

* Denies US unit can operate in country

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday slammed descriptions of the Waziristan peace deal signed last week as a pact between the government and the Taliban.

In her weekly media briefing, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam stressed that the accord had been secured between the NWFP authorities and local tribesmen and not between the government and the Taliban, adding that any country, including the United States, could see the agreement, if they so wished.

The pact, she stressed, underlined Pakistan’s long-term commitment to ensuring that peace prevailed in the area.

She also slammed as baseless weekend reports appearing in the American media that a US special unit has the authority to enter Pakistani territory without Islamabad’s permission to go after Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, while also dismissing US media reports that Mullah Omar was in Quetta.

“The reports published by a section of the US press are baseless … Pakistan is responsible for any operation on its side of the border against terrorists,” she said, adding that Bin Laden was not on Pakistani soil.

She said that a comprehensive strategy was urgently needed to counter terrorism since military action alone had proved ineffective. “We need a long-term strategy to address political disputes, sense of alienation, removal of grievances, depravation of socio-economic issues.”

On the informal talks expected between President General Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit later this month, she said that while no specific agenda had been set, the two leaders would naturally discuss Kashmir and the Indo-Pak peace process.

She also said that the World Bank-appointed neutral expert on the Baglihar dam dispute between India and Pakistan would give his interim verdict next month.

She said Pakistan had rejected the new design India had drawn up for Kishanganga dam in Kashmir.

“The new design ... also provides for diversion of water, which was our objection. That (objection) stays there,” she said.

She said Pakistani troops were being sent to Lebanon to clear landmines at the request of the Lebanon government and so would not officially be part of the UN peacekeeping mission. agencies

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