PARIS, June 13: US and Pakistani armed forces have agreed to conduct a joint investigation into a US air strike on a checkpost in Pakistani tribal area this week, killing 11 soldiers.

This was stated by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher here on Friday.

“There is an understanding between the militaries that they will conduct a joint investigation and the foreign ministers agreed that that was the right way to go,” he told reporters after a meeting between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

(According to our correspondent Baqir Sajjad Syed, Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations Major-General Athar Abbas said in Islamabad that the US offer for a joint probe was still being studied and a response would be issued soon.)

US officials have expressed regret for the deaths but have said that the strike was a legitimate action carried out in self-defence after US troops on the Afghan side of the border came under attack. Mr Qureshi, who like Ms Rice was in Paris to attend an Afghan donors’ conference on Thursday, said that such “tragic incidents” only helped the extremist cause.

“The people who have died have been identified and there is no confusion about their identity … Those facts will be put forward when the joint investigation takes place and hopefully we will get to the bottom of the story,” he said before his talks with Ms Rice.

While saying that he thought a joint investigation would be useful, Mr Qureshi also called on the United States to cooperate much more with the Pakistani military.

Mr Qureshi said the killings would not help relations with Washington and risked undermining Pakistan’s efforts to bring peace to the tribal areas. “These incidents do not help (relations). We want to get the support of the local population. Such incidents damage this environment and do not help,” he said.

“We need to find out how and why it happened – what exactly happened,” Mr Boucher said, “get to the bottom of it jointly and then figure out how to make sure we avoid this in the future”.

Mr Boucher said the US was not accepting responsibility for the deaths, and American officials had disputed Pakistan’s account of the incident. While Ms Rice and Mr Qureshi discussed the need for security, economic development and cooperation with the tribes in the border areas, Mr Boucher said they also talked about “the need to avoid compromises with militants, with the extremists.”

“We do have misgivings about some of the things that we see going on these days,” he said, referring to negotiations that the new government had undertaken in Swat and Waziristan.

Mr Qureshi denied his government was enabling militants to regroup, saying it was committed to defeating terrorist networks and had not withdrawn troops from the area or “given up the military option”.

“We have sent a message to this extreme fringe element that we want to settle affairs, but if they cannot live and abide by Pakistani law we will be forced to take action,” he said.-Agencies

Anwar Iqbal adds from Washington: The United States and Pakistan have both launched efforts to control the damage done by the air strike pledging not to allow such incidents to affect their bilateral ties. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani met US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte conveying his government’s sentiments over the incident.

He later told a gathering at Washington’s Atlantic Council that both countries agreed not to allow this incident to cast a shadow over their relations.

“Nothing is to be gained from pressing emotional buttons in Pakistan or painting Pakistan as a dysfunctional state here in America,” he said. “Pakistan and the United States are not at war. They are not enemies.”