Pakistan on Saturday denied the presence of any foreign bases on its soil and said recent comments by a US senator about the drones operating from within the country were not a revelation but based solely on news reports as also clearly stated by the spokesman of the lawmaker.
"It was an off the cuff remark and not a revelation as some media reports have made it out to be," said Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman of the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington.
"There are no foreign bases in Pakistan," he added. Comments by the new chairperson of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, suggesting that US Predator drones operated from within Pakistan were based on newspaper reports and not on intelligence briefings. Phi lip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.
US intelligence sources said that the unmanned Predator aircraft were exclusively operated by the United States and the US never revealed details about the operation of these aircraft. Given the US presence in Afghanistan there was no need for Pakistan based operations, they said.