ISLAMABAD, Aug 6: The government told the National Assembly on Monday any American military operations inside Pakistan to hunt militants, as suggested by a prospective US presidential candidate, would be regarded as aggression.

Opening a three-day foreign policy debate designed to focus on Pakistan-US relations, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi demanded a halt to such threats and urged the United States to review its new US law that conditions aid to Pakistan with performance in the so-called “war against terrorism” and offer a similar civilian nuclear deal to Pakistan as agreed with India.

Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman accused the government of following a US-dictated foreign policy despite what he called Washington’s mistrust of Islamabad and suggested Pakistan’s withdrawal from the US-led coalition.

The debate, which Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain said would be wound up by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri on Wednesday, started late in the evening on a day that was marked by a spectacular return to the house of bailed out Pakistan Muslim League-N acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi after nearly four years in prison on the disputed charges of trying to incite an army mutiny.

Mr Niazi said some American presidential hopefuls were displaying a “cheap mentality” to please “a minority” as he referred to a statement made by Democratic candidate Senator Barak Obama that he would be ready to send troops to Pakistani tribal areas in search of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and another by a Republican hopeful, Tom Tancredo, suggesting to threaten an attack on Islam’s holiest sites in Makkah and Medina to deter a nuclear attack on the United States.

He said God Himself would protect the Kaaba and recalled the fate of the ancient Yemeni king Abraha who, according to the holy Quran, set off to destroy the Kaaba but perished with his forces of elephants when pelted with claystones dropped by flocks of birds, adding that all Muslims of the world would resist such a move.

The minister said if the US nuclear deal with India was only for peaceful purposes then Pakistan also wanted a similar deal “because we also have a need (for nuclear energy) which should be met for the sake of balance”.

He asked Bush administration officials and US presidential hopeful to desist from talking about carrying out military operations inside Pakistani territory because neither Osama nor Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were there and said: “I think such military intervention will be considered an aggression.”

He said Pakistan was fighting terrorism in its own interest and was not acting on an American agenda.

Mr Niazi said President Bush must send back to Congress the recently passed legislation that requires him to confirm that Pakistan is making progress in combating Al Qaeda and Taliban elements within its borders before the United States provides aid to the country and have this condition removed.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the government’s claim that its foreign policy was not dictated by Washington was “a negation of facts” and added: “Our foreign office is incapable of formulating its own foreign policy. We are only following an imported foreign policy.”

He described the “war against terrorism” as a myth and said in fact it was designed for American control of Central Asia’s mineral wealth and trade routes in the same way as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s was meant to reach warm waters of the Arabian Sea.

The maulana also criticised the government for making its western border with Afghanistan unsafe and buying peace on the eastern border at the cost of a just solution of the Kashmir dispute with India.

Referring to the American threats, he said if the United States did not trust Pakistan after “all our sacrifices” then “will it not be better to say goodbye to this international coalition”.

He said the US-Indian nuclear deal would disturb balance of power in the region and added that Pakistan did not seem to have the needed clout to get a similar deal.

CHEERS FOR HASHMI: It was all cheers from the opposition benches when Mr Hashmi arrived in the Assembly, still defiant but saying he had no rancour against anybody.