Pakistan's top diplomat rejects foreign troops on its soil

United Nations: Pakistan's top diplomat asserted on Wednesday that his nation will permit only Pakistani troops to operate within its borders, rejecting a standing US offer of military assistance also intended to help Afghanistan.

The statement by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, coming during late Wednesday's UN Security Council session on Afghanistan's future, could deal a blow to the United States' efforts to kill or capture Al Qaida leaders.

"Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used against other countries. However, no foreign troops will be allowed to operate inside Pakistan," Qureshi told the 15-nation council. "The new democratic government in Pakistan cannot but be sensitive to the sentiments of our people."

The council's session was shadowed by Monday's suicide car bombing at the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 130 others, widely seen as another sign of deteriorating security in
Afghanistan.

Afghan officials quickly raised suspicions that Pakistani operatives had worked with the Taliban to set off a bombing that could play into the long-standing struggle for power between Pakistan and India.

The US has offered military support to help Pakistan's military put more pressure on Al Qaida and Taliban strongholds in Pakistan's tribal areas.

In recent days, news reports also described Washington as taking steps to make it easier to launch covert special missions in Pakistan's remote tribal areas, where Al Qaida is believed to be rebuilding its global terror network.

The US has voiced increasing frustrations that Pakistan does not seem willing to apply even more pressure to those areas where Al Qaida and Taliban leaders are thought to inhabit.