ISLAMABAD – PTI Central Information Secretary Shireen Mazari on Thursday said it was unfortunate that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif failed to categorically tell US President Barack Obama that drone strikes must stop.

“Instead all the prime minister could muster before Obama was to ‘urge’ him to halt these illegal strikes which are now being seen as possible war crimes,” she said.

Mazari said the recent Amnesty International report had pointed to the illegal nature of these strikes and stated they could constitute war crimes.

She said Pakistan’s political parties had given a consensual mandate to the federal government, just as they had done to the previous government, to stop the drone strikes. “But neither the previous government nor the present one is prepared to act resolutely to stop these unlawful drone attacks despite their accepted illegality under international law and their brazen violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.”