Pakistan raises issue of drone strikes at UN

Pakistan has raised the issue of United States-led drone strikes in its tribal regions at the UN Security Council seeking urgent talks to resolve the problem. The Ambassador of Pakistan to the UN told the council, "drone strikes infringe our sovereignty, violate international law, including international human rights and humanitarian law, cause civilian casualties and are detrimental to the combined efforts to fight terrorism." Masood told the 15-nation council, "Pakistan is facilitating the Afghan reconciliation process, but progress is attainable only if all stakeholders share the goals of the peace process." The Pakistani envoy said, "We need to pursue this goal together, with unity of purpose," adding, "We call for cessation of drone strikes. Urgent and intense dialogue can help resolve this issue." While addressing the opening session of the 24th Human Rights Council, the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN in Geneva, Zamir Akram said that Pakistan, a primary target of drone attacks, had suffered a heavy loss of innocent lives apart from widespread social and economic costs. Akram further added that in recent years, there had been severe human rights violations across the globe, as a result of indiscriminate use of force in the context of counter-terrorism efforts. The drone strikes are very unpopular in Pakistan and the Foreign Office has condemned the US-led drone strikes in northern tribal areas several times declaring it as violation of their sovereignty. Earlier, all the major political parties of Pakistan agreed during All Parties Conference (APC) to raise the issue of drone strikes at UN