ISLAMABAD / WASHINGTON -Pakistan will boycott an international conference on Afghanistan's future in Bonn next week to protest against a NATO cross-border attack that killed two dozen of its soldiers and plunged the region deeper into crisis.

"Pakistan has decided not to attend the Bonn conference as a protest," a government official said on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Lahore.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she was "very sorry" about Pakistan's announced boycott of the conference and would try to convince it to attend.