British FM urges support for Pak terror fight
Afp, Islamabad
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called yesterday for international support for Pakistani President Pervez's efforts to combat al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along the Afghan frontier. Miliband, on his first major trip since he took office a month ago, struck a markedly different tone from the United States which recently threatened to launch unilateral strikes on rebels in Pakistan's tribal areas. Pakistan has bristled at warnings from Washington, its key ally, that it cannot continue to allow Osama bin Laden's rejuvenated terror network to use the South Asian nation's frontier regions as a safe haven. "The right way forward is one based on partnership between the countries," Miliband told a news conference when asked if he had discussed the US threats of military action with Musharraf during their meeting earlier in the day. "In respect of the shared challenges we face in the tribal areas, in every aspect we have been talking about what we can do together, not me lecturing the Pakistani government or vice versa," he added. The British minister said a strong relationship was needed between Pakistan's government and the Nato and US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan to stabilise the volatile border between the two countries. "This is an issue that requires concerted efforts on both sides of the border. It is also a problem that requires elements of social intervention, as well as security intervention," he said. His Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri used their joint press conference to lash out again at the increasingly tough line being taken by the administration of US President George W Bush. The White House's top counter-terrorism official Frances Townsend on Sunday caused a stir by refusing to rule out a military incursion into remote Pakistani regions close to the border with Afghanistan. "Such statements are irresponsible and should not be made," Kasuri said. "It may be election season in the United States but it should not be at our expense." Pakistan says it has nearly 90,000 troops along the border and points to the fact that it has lost more than 700 soldiers in military operations against Islamic militants who fled the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Miliband flew to Islamabad on Wednesday from Kabul, where he met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other officials for talks on stabilising the volatile region. Violence has flared in Pakistan since government troops stormed the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in the capital earlier this month, killing scores of militants. More than 200 people have died in a wave of revenge attacks by militants, including around a dozen suicide bombings in the past three weeks. A soldier was killed in a rocket attack on Thursday in the tribal belt.
| 
