Pakistan has come down heavily on the United States for remarks that Islamabad could not be trusted with details of "Operation Geronimo" which killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, it has been reported.
, told the BBC on Wednesday that the U.S. view was "disquieting" and claimed that Islamabad had played a "pivotal role" in tackling terrorism.
"Most of these things that have happened in terms of global anti-terror, Pakistan has played a pivotal role. So it's a little disquieting when we have comments like this," he said.
CIA Director Leon Panetta has been quoted as saying that Pakistani authorities were not taken into confidence by his spy agency while planning "Operation Geronimo," fearing that it could be jeopardized.
"The CIA had ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on. It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets," Panetta told Time magazine in an interview regarded as his first since bin Laden's killing.
Bashir said Panetta was indeed entitled to his views but it could not be denied that Pakistan had cooperated fully with the U.S.-led war on terror. Also, the top diplomat said bin Laden's fortified hideout in the garrison town of Abbottabad near Islamabad had been identified as suspicious by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency sometime back.
Bin Laden was killed early on Sunday in a covert operation by the elite U.S. Navy SEALS commandos. The White House said on Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed at the time of his killing.
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