UN probing US drones' rights violations: Pakistan

Pakistan Thursday confirmed that the UN Special Rapporteur was conducting an inquiry into human rights violations by the US drone attacks in the country's tribal regions, Xinhua reported.

The exercise is part of a broader mandate given to the Rapporteur by the UN Human Rights Council to examine abuse of human rights while countering terrorism, a Foreign Office spokesperson Moazzam Ahmad Khan said Thursday at the weekly news briefing in Islamabad.

"Pakistan, along with other like-minded countries, had called for examining the extra-judicial and targeted killing including through drone strikes resulting in death of civilians and non- combatants," he said.

The US uses drones to launch attacks in Pakistan's Waziristan tribal region, saying they are meant to target the remnants of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who are blamed for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan and tribesmen insist that the America's unmanned aircraft kill innocent people.

Pakistan regards drone strikes as violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the official said.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari would visit Britain in the first week of February to attend a trilateral summit along with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.