Aaj English TV

Tuesday, December 24, 2024  
21 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1446  

COAS Kayani rejects Salala report: Sources

Chief of army Staff General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani met General James Mattis, the head of US Central Command, and General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, Aaj news reported.

General Kayani rejected the report on Salala checkpost incident, Sources said.
Two top US generals on Wednesday were due to hold talks with the Pakistan army chief in the first such meeting since air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers four months ago, the Pakistan army said.

General James Mattis, the head of US Central Command, and General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, had arrived in Pakistan earlier on Wednesday, a Pakistani official said.

The November 26 strikes, for which the United States has so far refused to apologise, prompted Pakistan to shut its Afghan border to NATO supplies and evict American personnel from an air base reportedly used in its drone war against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The Pakistani army said the meeting would focus “on the inquiry into the incident and improvements in border coordination procedures”.

A Pakistani security official, speaking to AFP confirmed that the American generals had arrived in Pakistan, but declined to give any further information until after the meeting had taken place later in the afternoon.

On Tesday, US President Barack Obama met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani at a nuclear summit in Seoul, and vowed to rescue their troubled alliance which almost ruptured over months of mistrust and recriminations.

It was the highest-level exchange between the two sides since the killing of Osama bin Laden in a clandestine US raid on Pakistan last May.