PR. NO. 242/2010
Date: 27/09/2010
Pakistan protests against ISAF/NATO aerial engagements
Pakistan has strongly protested to ISAF/NATO on the two incidents of aerial engagements from the Afghanistan side into Pakistani territory by ISAF/NATO helicopters. These incidents are a clear violation and breach of the UN mandate under which ISAF operates. The said mandate “terminates/finishes” at the Afghanistan border. There are no agreed “hot pursuit” rules. Any impression to the contrary is not factually correct. Such violations are unacceptable.
Date: 27/09/2010
Pakistan protests against ISAF/NATO aerial engagements
Pakistan has strongly protested to ISAF/NATO on the two incidents of aerial engagements from the Afghanistan side into Pakistani territory by ISAF/NATO helicopters. These incidents are a clear violation and breach of the UN mandate under which ISAF operates. The said mandate “terminates/finishes” at the Afghanistan border. There are no agreed “hot pursuit” rules. Any impression to the contrary is not factually correct. Such violations are unacceptable.
ISAF/NATO has been asked not to participate in any military action that violates the UN mandate and infringes upon Pakistan’s sovereignty. In the absence of immediate corrective measures, Pakistan will be constrained to consider response options.
Pakistan has always emphasized the need for coordinated and joint action against forces inimical to regional and global peace. Pakistan has boldly and at a great cost countered terrorists. Element of trust followed by capacity enhancement of Pakistan’s armed forces was stressed. The demarche has been relayed to NATO Headquarters in Brussels.
Islamabad 27 September 2010
From the United Nations Charter:
Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. [emphasis added]
All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.
UPDATE: Cross Border Attack Repelled By Air Weapons Team
And still, in 1946, we have the prophetic George Orwell:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."
