Outrage intensified in Pakistan yesterday over the timing of a visit by two senior American envoys who landed even before the new Cabinet is formed.
Newspaper editorials decried the visit as American "meddling" and said it was ill-timed. Protesters in at least three cities burned US flags and waved banners demanding the envoys go home.
Meanwhile, an American newspaper reported that a recent increase in US airstrikes in Pakistan's tribal areas was a result of US worries that the new government would scale back military operations in the area.
Such strikes have killed at least 25 people this month, sparking anger over civilian casualties in the region, where Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaida operatives could be hiding.
Washington has been scrambling to build bridges with Pakistan's new leaders, who routed President Pervez Musharraf's loyalists in parliamentary elections last month partly because of popular anger over the president's alliance with the US in its war on terror.
The new government has pledged to slash Musharraf's powers and review his American-backed counterterrorism policies.
Already, partners in the new government have said they would negotiate with some militant groups - an approach that has drawn criticism from Washington, which has provided about $10 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001.
The US envoys, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, began meetings in Islamabad just as newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was taking his oath of office on Tuesday.
Yesterday's English-language newspaper Dawn said the envoys came to Pakistan "in indecent haste." The visit was "not in keeping with diplomatic propriety," it said in an editorial.
The newspaper News urged US officials to "restrain themselves in further meddling in Pakistan's affairs."
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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