WASHINGTON, May 23: Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on Sunday rejected as "totally unacceptable" recent incursions from Afghanistan by US troops trying to track down Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

"It's a question of principle," Kasuri told CNN television. "We're a proud sovereign nation, and we don't want to be taken for granted that people can move into our territory," he said.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday that an incursion by US troops into Pakistan, the second in two weeks, was nothing more than an unfortunate accident, but Kasuri rejected the US mea culpa.

"If you make mistakes too often you create an impression that you're doing it deliberately," he said. The Pakistan government, which protested the incident, said it occurred on Thursday in the North Waziristan tribal area when US troops crossed the border during a search operation in a village that straddles the Afghan border. -AFP