Pakistan on Tuesday defended a controversial anti-insurgent fence that it is building on the Afghan border, saying that it has curbed the movement of Taliban and al Qaeda rebels.
Pakistan said last month it had erected the first 20 kilometres (12 miles) of barbed wire fencing in the North Waziristan tribal area, where US officials have alleged that al Qaeda is running terror camps.
Afghanistan has objected to the fence because it does not recognise the porous border between the two countries, which are already at loggerheads over tackling Islamist violence. "It is quite beneficial and wherever we have erected the fence in Waziristan, I think it is paying dividends," interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema told reporters.
Cheema said the fence was only effective because Pakistani forces were monitoring the area that it covers. "I am sure it has helped us a great deal in reducing the cross-border movement in those particular areas," Cheema added, without giving details of how many militants had been stopped or whether any had been arrested.
Pakistan has said it will erect another 15-kilometre stretch of the fence in neighbouring South Waziristan. It earlier dropped plans to mine the frontier.
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