Islamabad - The Pakistani government and lawmakers on Monday reacted angrily to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's warning that he could send troops into the neighbouring country to hunt down Taliban militants launching cross-border attacks. "Since the two countries were faced with a common enemy it was all the more necessary that Afghanistan refrained from making irresponsible threatening statements," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement.
Karzai on Sunday said the killing of Afghan and coalition soldiers by infiltrating fighters gave Afghanistan the right to strike Taliban leaders on Pakistani soil in "self defence."
Qureshi said he regretted that the Afghan president made the remarks at a time when the two countries had agreed to close ranks in the war against terror which, he said, could only be won by showing full respect for territorial sovereignty and non-interference in each others internal affairs.
"I would also like to make it absolutely clear that Pakistan shall defend its territorial sovereignty," he added.
In a further expression of displeasure with Karzai, Islamabad on Monday summoned Afghan Ambassador Mohammad Anwar Anwarzai to the Foreign Office to formally "lodge a strong protest."
Pakistan has been facing continuing pressure from Washington and other countries for failing to stop the cross-border movement of al- Qaeda and Taliban elements from its restive tribal region to attack Afghan soldiers and the allied troops fighting the US-led war against terrorism.
The country has deployed around 100,000 soldiers on its porous border to contain the rebels, who have also targeted Pakistani forces. In a suicide bombing campaign over the last 15 months, more than 4,000 people, including 1,000 security personnel, were killed.
Worried over internal security, the new government opened fresh peace talks with the militants in March immediately after it took over. This raised concerns in Washington and Kabul which want to see Islamabad going all out against militancy, and tensions on the border with Afghanistan.
Last Tuesday, US planes targeted Taliban fighters fleeing after a cross-border attack in Afghanistan. A Pakistani border post also came under fire, with 11 paramilitary soldiers and 13 others injured.
Lawmakers in both houses of the parliament in Pakistan condemned the Afghan president's statements on Monday.
"If Pakistani civilians were killed in tribal areas by any attack from Afghan soil, Pashtuns will themselves take revenge from Karzai," said Engineer Shaukatullah, a legislator in the upper house National Assembly.
Senator Rahat Hussain from the religious Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam party said everybody knew that Karzai was just a puppet and "he was speaking the language of someone else (the US and NATO)."
Some analysts believe that by blasting Pakistan, Karzai is trying to divert attention from his failure to containing insurgency in Afghanistan.
To great embarrassment for his government, about 900 prisoners including some 400 jailed Taliban escaped following an attack by militants on a prison in southern city of Kandahar on Friday night.
As a reminder of his enemy's strength, Pakistani Taliban mocked Karzai.
"His forces cannot control their own capital, how would they fight mujahidin in the tribal region," said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman of militant umbrella organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
"We do not possess a slave mentality like Karzai. We know how to fight and defend our land," he added.
