Pakistan has condemned the United States over its interference in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province, and summoned Washington’s envoy in Islamabad over a recent U.S. Congress hearing. 

 

Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Monday summoned U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Richard Hoagland and expressed its extreme displeasure over a U.S. Congressional hearing last week that reportedly discussed alleged human rights abuses in Balochistan, Dawn reported.

 

"The charge d'affairs was informed that this was unacceptable as it amounted to interference in the internal affairs of the country," a foreign ministry statement said.

 

Since 2004 Western-backed separatist militants affiliated with ultra-nationalist Balochi parties have been waging a low-intensity insurgency against Islamabad. Some Western countries have accused Pakistan of committing human rights violations in the province. 

 

Meanwhile, the Pakistani parliament adopted a resolution, which condemned a sub-committee hearing in the U.S. Congress, saying the U.S. has absolutely no jurisdiction to discuss the country’s internal affairs. 

 

The resolution, tabled by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan from the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party in the National Assembly, was unanimously passed.

 

The resolution stated that “the house rigorously condemns and does not accept the hearing by the U.S. Congress and considers any such attempt an open intervention in state’s sovereignty and its internal affairs.”

 

"American interference in Pakistan's internal affairs is unacceptable," the resolution said.

 

Relations between Islamabad and Washington have significantly deteriorated in the last year over CIA assassination drone strikes in the northwestern tribal belt of the country as well as repeated violations of the country’s sovereignty by the U.S. 

 

Pakistan stopped the supply convoys destined for the 130,000-strong U.S.-led force occupying Afghanistan in response to NATO airstrikes on November 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two checkpoints on the Afghan border.

 

In response to the airstrikes, Islamabad also ordered the U.S. to vacate a key airbase in Balochistan province. 

 

On Sunday, tens of thousands Pakistanis staged a demonstration in Karachi to condemn the U.S. policies and its drone strikes in the tribal region. 

 

The demonstration was arranged by Defense of Pakistan Council, an alliance of 40 religious and political parties. 

 

Speakers at the protest delivered hard-hitting speeches, urging the Pakistani government to cease its cooperation with Washington's so-called war on terror. 

 

The protesters also demanded the repatriation of Pakistani neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui, who is imprisoned in the United States. 

 

In September 2010, a court in New York sentenced Siddiqui to 86 years in prison after she was found guilty of opening fire on FBI agents and U.S. military personnel at a police station in the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan in 2008, while under interrogation. 

 

The mother of three vanished in Karachi with her three children on March 30, 2003. The following day, local newspapers reported that she had been abducted by U.S. forces and charged with terrorism. 

 

Siddiqui had secretly been transferred to the U.S. base in Bagram, north of the Afghan capital Kabul, and tortured for five years prior to the alleged 2008 incident.