ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday criticised as “extremely irresponsible” remarks from the top US military officer saying that Islamabad may have approved the killing of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad.
Admiral Mike Mullen, when asked about media reports that the Pakistani government approved Mr Shahzad’s killing, said: “I haven’t seen anything that would disabuse that report.”
But when asked if Pakistan’s intelligence service had been involved, Mullen said he could not confirm the allegation.
The remarks aggravated relations already strained by a covert US raid north of Islamabad in May that killed Osama bin Laden and the killing of two men by a CIA contractor in Lahore in January.
In a statement released by the information ministry, the government described Mullen’s remarks, if true as attributed, as “extremely irresponsible” and said it “does not help” in getting to the bottom of Shahzad’s death.
The government last month set up a judicial commission to investigate how the reporter died and the information ministry said such comments could be considered an attempt to influence the outcome of the inquiry.
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Mullen