Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, while delivering a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday, admitted that the recent death of three troopers due to a strike by NATO choppers had affected the country's friendly ties with the United States.
"We are an ally, not a satellite. We have to protect our borders. You have to respect our sovereignty," said Qureshi.
His comments came two days before the strategic dialogue between the two nation, which starts on Wednesday.
"You have to realise the political price you pay in Pakistan and that my government pays as your friend from the almost daily drone assaults on our territory. If unmanned drone attacks were not difficult enough for our people to absorb, the recent acts of NATO helicopters in Pakistan, killing Pakistani soldiers, are nothing short of infuriating," Qureshi said.
Furious Pakistani authorities had shut down the main route for supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan through Khyber Pass and forced the US to formally apologise for the incident.
Qureshi also said that Pakistan was ready to engage with India to find an 'amicable' solution to outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, and asked the US "to do everything in its power" to resolve this dispute.
"Pakistan is willing to engage India in a comprehensive dialogue to normalise relations between the two countries by finding amicable solutions to all outstanding issues including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir," Qureshi said.
"We urge the US, a friend of both India and Pakistan, to do everything in its power to resolve this conflict and remove one more source of Muslim discontent and anger," he told a gathering of over 700 students and professors at the School.
The outstanding issues between the two nations "keep haunting us. We have to address them, the sooner we address them, the better it is for the entire region," Qureshi said.
"Pakistan views the prevailing situation in Kashmir with great concern," he said, adding that "men and women of goodwill" in both India and Pakistan know that "this issue must be addressed once for all if the Kashmir time bomb was to be defused."
Qureshi said terrorism is a 'common enemy' for India and Pakistan and the two countries need to collectively fight the menace. He said that if India and Pakistan 'turn away' from each other, terrorists and extremists will be the 'net beneficiaries'.
He said the two countries can tackle extremism and terrorism if both sides realise that "this is the common enemy and we need a common approach to defeat this menace. If we turn away, if we disengage, they will be the net beneficiaries."
