By IANS
Islamabad/Washington : The US presidential election campaign "must not be at our expense", Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri has said amidst contradictory signals from the US about the possibility of Pakistani territory being used for attacks on the Taliban.
Kasuri Thursday described as "irresponsible" statements made at US Congressional hearings that US forces might enter Pakistani territory to combat the Taliban and other militants as part of their anti-terror campaign.
"It may be election season in the US but it should not be at our expense," he said at a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband here.
Kasuri said such statements were counterproductive and were propelled by the US elections race, Daily Times reported.
The minister welcomed the congressional testimony of US Under Secretary Nicholas Burns in which he described Pakistan as an indispensable ally of the US.
He said Pakistan had floated a number of proposals to tighten border control but the world community had not responded to any of them so far.
Top Pentagon and State Department officials had earlier said that US special forces would enter Pakistan if they had specific intelligence about an impending terrorist strike against the US.
According to a report in the Washington Post Thursday, the officials, however, voiced strong support for President Pervez Musharraf, who they said has repeatedly backed US anti-terrorism efforts in the region at great political cost.
If there was "information or opportunity" to strike a blow to protect the American people, US forces would act immediately, Peter Verga, the acting assistant secretary of defence for international security, said during an unusual joint session held by the House's Armed Services Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the report said.
Verga was quoted in another dispatch from Washington as saying at the same briefing: "No, we've made no plans to use any US forces on their side of the border. They're a sovereign country, and they're doing, like I said, a military operation now to help provide better security there."