ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the National Assembly on Tuesday that Pakistan would take up its opposition to the often deadly drone raids on its tribal areas from Afghanistan with the new US administration less than eight weeks away as he seemed to suggest the row could outlive the American transition.

But he reassured the lower house his government would not compromise on national sovereignty and said President Asif Ali Zardari might raise the argument with American authorities on the sidelines of the Nov 12-13 UN General Assembly session on culture and peace that he will attend.

The prime minister made the statement in response to an opposition member’s query whether the government could stop overland supplies to US-led Nato forces in landlocked Afghanistan for the alleged violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by frequent rocketing from unmanned spy planes targeting perceived Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

He said the whole nation was as much concerned as the opposition about the country’s sovereignty and integrity but pointed to the period of transition in the United States until newly-elected president Barack Obama takes office on Jan 20, and added: “Then the new (Pakistani) government will talk to a new (US) government.”

Again coming to the oft-repeated opposition talk of threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty from drone attacks, he said: “I assure you we will do our best and will not let you down.”

The prime minister said that while US ambassador Anne W. Patterson and some intelligence officials met him on Sunday to brief him about the situation, he told them that “we don’t allow our land to be used for any aerial attack or ground attack”.

“We are a responsible nation, a nuclear power, and we have to act responsibly,” he said.Despite his newly-expanded hefty cabinet, Mr Gilani made three inventions in about one-and-a-half hours’ proceedings to respond to questions raised by opposition members through points of order on a private members’ day and looked ready for a fourth when Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, apparently not noticing the prime minister had risen from his seat, adjourned the house until 10am on Wednesday, when a debate on the president’s address to a joint sitting of parliament in September will begin.

OVERFLOWING RELIEF: Earlier, the prime minister told the house that sufficient relief goods were available for people displaced by the Oct 29 earthquake in Balochistan and said: “So much aid has been received that there is now a problem of distribution.”

He said while the government planned to build 6,000 houses for the sufferers, they themselves could build their own houses for which they would be paid Rs350,000 each, besides a compensation of Rs550,000 (Rs300,000 from the prime minister and Rs250,000 from the president) for each dead person and Rs150,000 (Rs100,000 from the prime minister and Rs50,000 from the president) for each injured.

In another intervention, the prime minister assured the house the government would ensure payment of the government-fixed support price for wheat and paddy to farmers.

The house allowed two opposition members to introduce as many private bills after new Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan said he had no objections to the drafts being sent to the standing committees concerned.PML-Q member Dr Attiya Inayatullah’s bill seeks to provide for a mechanism which, she said, did not exist now, for a speedy redress of public grievances against “acts of omission and commission of a state agency” and for a procedure for disposal of complaints.

The other bill, authored by Husmair Hayat Khan Rokhri, seeks to amend the Civil Servants Act of 1973 to provide for re-employment of government officials for up to five years after superannuation, which Mr Awan said would be “a form of ad-hocism”.