| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan's New Leader Denies Firefight as Mullen Confirms It |
| 2008-09-28 |
| Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday denied that American and Pakistani forces exchanged fire along the Afghanistan border this week, even as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged that the two sides engaged in a brief firefight. Zardari told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that Pakistani border forces shot warning flares Thursday at two U.S. helicopters that he believes inadvertently crossed into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan. He said there was no gunfire exchanged between the two sides. "We fired flares at them," he said. Zardari spoke at about the time that Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington that Pakistani forces fired on two U.S. helicopters supporting a ground unit Thursday and that American troops responded with small-arms fire. "There was a cross-border fire incident yesterday," Mullen said, corroborating reports from U.S and NATO military officials. He urged both sides not to "overreact to the hair-trigger tension we are all feeling. Now, more than ever, is a time for teamwork, for calm." One day after blasting the United States for violating Pakistani territory in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Pakistan's new leader sought to defuse tensions between the two countries and present Pakistan to the American public as a reliable ally in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. Zardari played down the significance of American incursions into Pakistan in recent weeks, referring to a Sept. 3 operation that led Pakistan to accuse U.S. commandos of killing 20 people in a South Waziristan village as a "one-off" incident. He praised President Bush's leadership in the fight against terrorism. "Obviously, the world is a safer place," he said. "It could have been worse." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 (pakistani_statements != truth) |
| Posted by: Tarzan Angeter7567 2008-09-28 09:32 |