Pakistan should clarify its position on US drone attacks

An investigative journalist says Pakistan should clarify whether it wants to support or condemn the U.S. drone attacks inside the country.

“The next session in parliament will be very important from the point of view of discussing the drone attacks” said Naveed Ahmad in an interview with press TV’s U.S. Desk.

Ahmad said that Pakistani parliament members have two different options regarding the deadly drone attacks.

“One, it has to come very clearly and admit” they would not want to stop drone attacks inside Pakistan and ignore the domestic court rulings which describe the attacks as “violation of Pakistan’s security and sovereignty.”

“Number two, the government of Pakistan will have to otherwise call on the U.S. that this is over and that it should not continue.”

“It’s in the United States’ interest to change their behavior,” Ahmad said, adding It’s also in Pakistani government’s interest to clarify their position.”

At least 17 people were killed in a U.S. drone attack in North Waziristan tribal region in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday.

The attack was the first since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took office. He has promised to take harder stance against drone attacks and cancel private agreements that allow U.S. to launch drone attacks inside the country.

Despite claims by the Obama administration that drone attacks are precise and “surgical,” a new study shows that drone strikes cause 10 times more civilian casualties than what already occurs in “conventional” warfare in the ongoing U.S. war in Afghanistan.