US attacks a violation of UN Charter: Pakistan

Lahore, Oct 6: Pakistan Law Minister Farooq H Naek said the missile attacks by US-led forces in Pakistan's tribal areas were a violation of human rights and the United Nations Charter. He said that the US' attacks didn't have UN Security Council's sanction.

"According to the international law, no sovereign country can be attacked without the approval of the Security Council," the Dawn quoted Naek as saying at a press conference at the Directorate of Human Rights. In the latest air strike by US forces in Waziristan on Saturday, Oct 4, at least 20 people, including six Arabs and eight Taliban, were killed. The drone attack was launched on a house belonging to a Taliban leader who had invited the foreigners over dinner.

Later, news reports claimed that the dead included two children and one woman too.

Over the past few weeks, the US' air strikes have attracted severe criticism from different sections of the Pakistani society, especially because a large number of innocent civilians, including women and children, have been killed in such attacks.

The US' air strikes had turned relations with Pakistan sour, particularly after Pakistan Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani said that such strikes were an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty and that the US must desist from such attacks else they might prove counter-productive.

ANI