The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Islamabad

Pakistan stoked tensions with Afghanistan on Monday, summoning the Afghan envoy and vowing to defend its territory after President Hamid Karzai threatened cross- border attacks on militants.

Karzai sent relations between the two allies in the US-led "war on terror" plummeting to a new low on Sunday when he said that his war-torn country would be justified in striking Taliban rebels based on Pakistani soil.

As hundreds of Afghans took to the streets in support of Karzai's comments, US President George W. Bush said he understood the frustration in Afghanistan but urged talks to resolve the "testy situation."

Pakistani foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said Afghan ambassador Anwar Anwarzai was summoned to the foreign office on Monday "and a strong protest was lodged over President Karzai's statement."

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned Karzai's "irresponsible, threatening" comments, saying in a statement that he would "like to make it absolutely clear that Pakistan shall defend its territorial sovereignty." The volatile situation on the porous 1,500-mile (2,500- kilometre) border was highlighted last week when Pakistan accused "cowardly" US-led coalition forces of killing 11 Pakistani soldiers in an airstrike.

Kabul had no immediate comment on the developments in Islamabad, but nearly 2,500 tribesmen and religious leaders gathered in two eastern Afghan provinces to back their president.

"We support Karzai. Pakistanis are coming to Afghanistan and we have evidence," Amin Jan, a tribal chief involved in one of the protests in Paktika province, told AFP.

In London, Bush urged the neighbours to expand their dialogue on how to confront militants on the frontier, possibly by restarting tribal jirgas or councils in the region.

"It's a testy situation there, and if I'm a president of a country and people are coming from one country to another, allegedly from one country to another, to kill innocent civilians on my side, I'd be concerned about it," Bush said after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Afghan and Western officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of failing to curb Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists based in its troubled tribal belt and have expressed concerns over its recent negotiations with Taliban commanders.