Pakistan
Considered Canceling U.K. Visit
NEW DELHIPakistan considered canceling a state visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to the U.K. after Prime Minister David Cameron made remarks during a trip to India this week about Pakistan's role in sponsoring terrorism.
A senior Pakistani government official said Friday the government had come close to canceling
but had decided to go ahead with the five-day visit, from Aug. 3, due to the "bigger issues involved," which include the long-term strategic relationship between the two countries.
A spokesman for the British High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, said only that the visit was proceeding as scheduled. He denied local media reports that the U.K.'s High Commissioner had been summoned Thursday by Pakistan's government, saying the meeting had been arranged previously.
Mr. Cameron on Wednesday, during a state visit to India, said Pakistan couldn't "look both ways" in receiving billions of dollars in aid from Western nations while continuing to "promote the export of terror, whether to India or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world."
On Thursday, Mr. Cameron stood by his remarks, despite complaints lodged by Pakistan's government. Mr. Cameron did note, however, that Pakistan's government is also engaged in a war against Taliban militants. Questions about Pakistan dominated a joint press conference between Mr. Cameron and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday in New Delhi.
Global pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militant groups operating from its soil has mounted since the release last weekend by WikiLeaks, a document-publishing Internet site, of thousands of classified U.S. military papers about the war in Afghanistan.
Those documents detailed alleged links between Pakistan's military spy agency and the Taliban in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009. Although many U.S. officials have said the documents are likely unreliable, politicians in India, the U.S. and the U.K. have seized on their contents to pressure Pakistan.
Pakistan's government has denied the contents of the documents. It has also pointed out that its army is fighting a war with Taliban extremists and has lost more than 2,000 soldiers in the past few years.
"One would have hoped that the British prime minister would have considered Pakistan's enormous role in the war on terror and the sacrifices it has made since 9/11," Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's High Commissioner to London, wrote in the Guardian, a British newspaper, on Wednesday.
Mr. Hasan said he believed Mr. Cameron had based his comments on the WikiLeak documentation "despite it lacking credibility or corroborating proof."
Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, has a long history of involvement with jihadi groups from the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s to the conflict against Indian troops in Kashmir in the 1990s.
Pakistan claims it has severed those links, including banning a number of militant groups in 2002 and fighting a war against the Taliban and its allies over the past two years.
The U.S., U.K. and India, among other nations, remain skeptical and the document publications this week have given them ammunition.
India claims it has given Pakistan proof of ISI involvement in the attacks on Mumbai by 10 Pakistani gunmen in 2008, which led to the deaths of more than 160 people. Pakistan denied ISI involvement.
India's Home Secretary G.K. Pillai made the claim publicly earlier this month on the eve of peace talks between the foreign ministers of the two nations. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi later lashed out at Mr. Pillai for the comments at a joint news conference with his counterpart S.M. Krishna after the talks ended in acrimony.
At the news conference on Thursday with Mr. Cameron, Mr. Singh said Mr. Qureshi's comments had been unhelpful in pursuing peace between the two nations. Pakistan maintains Mr. Pillai's comments undermined the talks.
Cameron Comments Jeopardized Pakistan's U.K. Visit - WSJ.com
, Karan i thought you were a senior member and one of the only Indian members i have high respect for. But lets not start wet dreaming, Iran is no Afghanistan or Iraq. US simply does not has the resources and the manpower to invade a country as big as Iran. Its not only FATA where the terrorists are based, majority have moved up their camps into Afghanistan because NATO simply does not has the manpower and will to take them head on. Have you ever wondered why the Taliban and Warlords affiliated with Taliban control more than 60% of Afghanistan, having control of Kabul does not mean you have the control of Afghanistan.
