Islamabad, July 07: Pakistan today confirmed there had been a string of firing incidents on the border with Afghanistan but said there was no cause for alarm and these "localised" problems would be resolved bilaterally. "There has been an intermittent fire across the Pak-Afghanistan border," foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told a weekly briefing here.
"It is localised and it has not reached alarming proportions and we have a mechanism for resolving this issue and we are trying to do that," Khan said.
He said Islamabad did not know whether the people firing from the Afghan side were regular forces, militias or tribal fighters.
He also denied allegations by Afghan officials that Pakistani forces crossed into Afghan territory last month when Islamabad for the first time deployed its regular army in the northwestern tribal region of Mohmand to block infiltration of al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives.
"There have been no incursions. We respect the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Afghanistan and Pakistan are very close neighbours whose destiny is intertwined and I think we will be able to remove these irritants."
Lower-level Afghan officials and tribal chiefs in eastern Afghanistan have repeatedly blamed Pakistani troops for transgressing the border.
Bureau Report