Zardari to visit UK as anger at Cameron boils over in Pakistan

Guardian 

Pakistan premier on official visit to Britain as public back home vent fury at Cameron remarks

Pakistan's president, Asif Zardari, arrives for an official visit to the UK on Tuesday with a continuing storm back home over David Cameron's comments about Pakistani attitudes to terrorism.

Amid fears that security co-operation between Britain and Pakistan could be hit by the row, British officials sought today to play down the significance of the spat, insisting "no long-term damage" had been done by the prime minister's remarks in India last week.

In Pakistan, opposition parties united in demanding that the trip be cancelled; Pakistan's powerful military establishment has already demonstrated its anger by cancelling a visit by a delegation of intelligence officials to the UK.

Zardari – who arrived in France for a three-day trip – will "forcefully take up" the remarks when he meets Cameron, according to Pakistan's information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira. Attention is most likely to be focused on a session with the prime minister at Chequers on Friday.

"Any continuation of such a policy stance by the UK government could lead to fissures in the historically sound relationship between the two countries," Kaira said in London. "But we hope that this will not happen because Pakistan's stand against terrorism is based on facts evident to everyone."

Cameron started the storm last week when he said Pakistan could no longer "look both ways" by tolerating terrorism while demanding respect as a democracy.

British officials have denied subsequent reports that the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, had cancelled a visit to the UK because of the row, saying reports to this effect from Islamabad were based on a "misunderstanding". But Pakistan did show its anger by cancelling a visit by a delegation of ISI officers to the UK. Its members were due to hold talks with their opposite numbers from MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, the government's electronic eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham. A visit to Pakistan by a senior British security figure had also been cancelled.

British counter-terrorist officials make no secret of the importance they attach to security co-operation with Pakistan, although they admit the relationship can sometimes be difficult.

Gordon Brown said that 75% of terrorist plots in the UK had links to Pakistan, though that figure is now said to be down to around 50% as al-Qaida's presence and operational abilities in the region have diminished. British and other Nato forces in Afghanistan were almost entirely dependent on Pakistan for their supply route.

"The message should be clear that intelligence cooperation cannot take place when Pakistan is going to be abused at will by the British leadership. It is time both the US and UK realized that it is Pakistan that supplies the oxygen which allows them to exist and operate in Afghanistan," fumed an editorial Sunday in The Nation, a Pakistani daily.

Pakistan's military is particularly incensed that Cameron chose to make his comments in India, Pakistan's traditional enemy. "We are fighting this war with all sincerity," said an ISI official. "We work with over 50 foreign intelligence agencies but the biggest co-operation is with MI6 and the CIA. Up to now our co-operation [with MI6] has been exemplary."

Numerous terrorist conspiracies, some involving British nationals, have been foiled with UK-Pakistan spy agencies working together, including the 2006 plan to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Britain's High Commission in Islamabad has long included a senior representative from MI6 and more recently from MI5 as well – a change which reflects the growth of domestic UK security concerns since the July 2005 London bombings.

"The ISI is providing much of the information on British nationals, returning from the tribal areas [of Pakistan]. Both on al-Qaida and home-grown terrorism, the ISI has been very helpful," said Hamid Gul, a former head of the ISI who was recently accused in US. intelligence documents published by Wikileaks of aiding the Afghan Taliban

"If you [Britain] believe this, why do you have Pakistan as an ally at all?" said Masood Sharif Khattak, a former head of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau, the main civilian intelligence agency. "If we are the exporter of terror, why is it that the maximum terrorism is taking place in Pakistan?" Cameron's statement could help radicalize British Pakistanis, said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc, a book on the Pakistan army.