Pakistan said Tuesday it will plant land mines and build a fence on parts of its long, rugged frontier with Afghanistan to meet criticism it does too little to stop Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas from crossing the border.
Relations have been souring between the neighbors, which are key U.S. allies in its war on terror groups. Afghan and NATO officials contend militants operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but the Islamabad government insists it does all it can to stop them.
The plan did little to ease those frictions.
Afghanistan quickly objected to the idea of a fence along the 1,510-mile border, whose demarcation is disputed by the two nations. But Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan said his country would be acting on its own territory and did not need Afghan consent.
Khan told reporters Pakistan also will send unspecified military reinforcements to the frontier, joining about 80,000 soldiers already in the country's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
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