Pakistan has summoned the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad to protest a U.S. drone strike that killed 38 people in the country's northwest tribal region.
It was an unusually strong protest from Pakistan, which disapproves of the American strikes but has quietly tolerated them.
The foreign office in Islamabad said Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told Ambassador Cameron Munter Friday that such strikes were not only unacceptable but a “flagrant violation” of humanitarian law.
Pakistan's civilian and military leaders have condemned Thursday's drone strike, which they say struck a meeting of tribal elders in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. However, Pakistani intelligence officials were quoted as saying militants were killed in the strike.
Militants in the area often cross the border into Afghanistan to fight international forces.
On Friday, Foreign Secretary Bashir told Ambassador Munter the fundamentals of Pakistan-U.S. relations should be revisited and that Pakistan should not be taken for granted.
He added that under the current circumstances, Pakistan would not participate in trilateral meetings that include Afghanistan next week in Brussels.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan are already strained. Anti-American sentiment is running high, with the release of a CIA contractor this week.
Raymond Davis was accused of killing two Pakistanis in Lahore in January. He was freed Wednesday after the families of the victims agreed to pardon him in exchange for monetary compensation.
Davis said the two men were trying to rob him, and the U.S. had demanded the contractor's release, citing diplomatic immunity.
Protests have been held in Pakistani cities since Davis's release Wednesday. Several hundred people demonstrated in the capital, Islamabad, after Friday prayers, shouting anti-American slogans. Security was tight and the U.S. embassy in the Pakistani capital was shut down Friday as a precautionary measure.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Friday he supports the court decision to free Davis. He stressed that the country's leadership had left the final decision in the hands of the court, a move that he said was supported by public sentiment.