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the no-peace process...
Pakistan's interior minister has said the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud has destroyed the country's nascent peace process.
"This is not just the killing of one person, it's the death of all peace efforts," Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said.
Pakistan summoned the US ambassador to protest over Friday's drone strike that killed Mehsud.
It came a day before a Pakistani delegation had been due to fly to North Waziristan to meet Mehsud.
Hakimullah Mehsud was killed a day before Pakistani officials say they were scheduled to send a three-member team to start peace negotiations with the Taliban.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a local TV news channel, Geo, that the drone strike was an attempt to "sabotage" Pakistan's peace talks with Taliban.
But many believe Mehsud's death will leave the field open for groups that are known to have publicly favoured a rapprochement with Pakistan.
One of these groups is headed by Khan Said Sajna, the successor of Waliur Rehman, a militant commander who favoured talks with Islamabad and once contested the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban. Rehman was killed in a drone strike in May.
Mr Nisar accused the United States of "scuttling" efforts to begin peace talks, and said "every aspect" of Pakistan's co-operation with Washington would be reviewed.
Information Minister Pervez Rashid said: "The US has tried to attack the peace talks with this drone but we will not let them fail."
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had pledged to talk with the Taliban to try to end its campaign of violence, which has left thousands dead in bombings and shootings across the country.
- By Gus Leonisky at 3 Nov 2013 - 8:55am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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revenge never stops...
A government official claimed Mehsud had been discussing the matter with fellow fighters just before he was killed, while the Taliban said a government peace delegation was in Miran Shah at the time of the attack.
The country's rightwing religious parties are likely to interpret the drone strike as a deliberate attempt by the US to scupper peace talks with an organisation that swears allegiance to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, which fights against Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Sharif, who held meetings with US president Barack Obama in Washington DC last week, has repeatedly called for an end to drone strikes, despite persistent suspicions that Pakistan continues to give secret backing to the attacks.
But the US was never likely to turn up an opportunity to kill Mehsud, the mastermind of a devastating suicide bomb attack on a CIA station in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan in 2009 in which seven CIA officers died.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/pakistani-taliban-leader-hakimullah-mehsud-killed-drone-strike
nascent peace process.
The US has responded to accusations from Pakistan that a drone strike that killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud had destroyed the country's nascent peace process.
A state department official said talks with the Taliban were an internal matter for Pakistan.
The statement insisted Pakistan and the US had a "shared strategic interest in ending extremist violence".
It also said it could still not confirm that Mehsud had been killed on Friday.
Pakistan has summoned the US ambassador to protest over Friday's drone strike that killed Mehsud.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24792516