ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday condemned a resolution introduced by a US lawmaker calling for self-determination in restive Balochistan province.

“This resolution violates our sovereignty and we condemn it,” Gilani told reporters in a televised interaction with media in Karachi.

Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher said that Balochis should be allowed to choose their status.

A resolution Friday sponsored by Rohrabacher and two fellow Republicans said the Balochi people “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country, and they should be afforded the opportunity to choose their own status.”

Gilani also defended Pakistan's absence from the Bonn conference on Afghanistan and said the decision was taken in the national interest.

He said that Pakistan wanted friendly relations with all neighbouring countries including India.

KHAR's REACTION

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar described the resolution as an “isolated move by a few individuals”.

“It was aimed to create distrust between the peoples of the two countries,”she said in a statement.

Khar expressed the hope that “this latest tendentious move will not be allowed to sail through the House by a vast majority of US Congressmen who continued to support friendly relations between the two countries”.