WASHINGTON: Stressing on the sovereignty of Pakistan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has advised caution against any suggestions for the US unilateral action against terrorists that may be hiding on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

Commenting on the suggestions of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Rice told an American TV channel that Washington had been working cooperatively with the South Asian ally to curb terrorism threat along the Pak-Afghan border region.

“The United States is acting with Pakistan to deal with the terrorism threat. One has to be a little careful about what you say about the territory of a sovereign state with which you are not at war. And so, we have done this in working with the Pakistanis and working together to share intelligence and working together to deal with threats when they emerge,” she told the Bloomberg TV channel.

The top US diplomat said everybody needed to do more in the fight against terrorism. “Do we need to do more? Absolutely. Everybody needs to do more. But I would be very careful with what I say about the territory of a sovereign state,” she said.

Acknowledging the complexity of the problem at the Pak-Afghan border, she pointed out that the region “is very difficult for anyone to govern and very difficult for anyone to operate in.” Rice said the US administration had been actively cooperating with Pakistan “whether it is on the matter of the Pakistani democracy, where we were very active in pushing for the democratic change in Pakistan, or in the work that we have done to help the Pakistanis deal with a terrorism threat that is a threat not just to the United States, not just to Afghanistan, but also to Pakistan.”