Pakistan boycotts Bonn conference over NATO attack

Pakistan will not be a part of the upcoming Bonn conference to protest the recent attack by North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) helicopters on a Pakistani check-post on Saturday, media reports said.

North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) helicopters attacked a checkpost in Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Saturday killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The decision on Bonn Conference where Pakistan was expected to play a vital role was taken at a cabinet meeting in Lahore on Tuesday, media reports said.

The conference was scheduled to take place at the German city of Bonn on Dec 5.

Foreign Ministers from ninety countries are expected to attend the Bonn Conference where they would decide on crucial issues related to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, US-led investigators have been asked to probe the attacks on the Pakistani check post until Dec 23, media reports said.

US military appointed Brigadier General Stephen Clark, a one-star air force general, to lead the investigation into the controversial attack that has been vehemently criticised by Pakistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Tuesday that he will call for a joint session of both houses of parliament and discuss on the cross-border NATO attack.

He said that the issue of a secret memorandum sent to the US military with the aim of taking help to prevent a probable military takeover in Pakistan, will also be discussed during the joint statement.

Gilani remarked that the joint session of Parliament will be called after he received all the recommendations of the parliamentary committee on the issues related to national security on the NATO attack and the controversial "Memogate" affair.

Pakistan has already written to the United Nations (UN) about its protest and condemnation on the NATO airstrike incident that put the relationship between US and Pakistan on rough weathers.

Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.N., Abdullah Hussain Haroon, wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to communicate Pakistan´s views on the NATO attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

He also mentioned in his letter that 13 soldiers were injured in the helicopter attack.

Haroon´s letter was dated Nov 27 and had the words "most urgent" marked on it, media reports said.

European Union (EU) chief diplomat Catherine Ashton expressed her condolences to Pakistan on Tuesday over the incident.

Ashton´s office commented in a statement on Tuesday that EU supports Pakistan and also the steps taken by NATO to conduct a full investigation of the attack.

Meanwhile, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, in an interview with the British television network ITV on Monday, said that thought it was justified on the part of Pakistan to get angry over the NATO strike on Saturday, but at the same time he refused to apologize on the ground that NATO needed to investigate the attack.

On the other hand, a preliminary US military report on the NATO strike has showed that in a calculated maneuver by Taliban, the NATO forces might have been lured to attack Pakistani forces on Saturday, media reports said.