Islamabad, October 05: Britain’s home and defense secretaries have arrived in Pakistan, amid growing public opposition to Islamabad’s security cooperation with the West.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson and Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth are to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and other top ministers in the two-day visit.
They saidd they plan to discuss ways to promote counter-terrorism and defense cooperation between Pakistan and Britain.
The two British officials have also expressed hope that the visit will help Pakistan’s counter-insurgency efforts.
“A stable and secure Pakistan is a vital goal … for security in Afghanistan where thousands of British troops are stationed,” a statement by the British high commission in Islamabad quoted Ainsworth as saying on Monday.
This comes as a recent opinion poll revealed that 85 percent of Pakistanis oppose their leaders’ cooperation with foreign powers in the so-called war on terror.
Press TV correspondent in Islamabad, Addie Saber, says that the main opposition parties — the Pakistan Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami — have also scorned the UK ministers’ visit.
Saber added that the growing anti-western sentiments in Pakistan are mainly due to rising attacks by US-led unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the south Asian country.
Since August 2008, nearly 75 UAVs’ attacks have killed more than 550 people, many of whom were civilians, in southwestern Pakistan.
According to media reports, only one-sixth of the raids have managed to hit militant hideouts.
This is while Washington claims the attacks are being made to wipe out rebel strongholds in the semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt, where hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion, are allegedly based.
The civilian and military authorities in Islamabad publicly oppose the US missile strikes, saying they violate the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
There are nevertheless reliable reports that many of the UAV flights are actually based in Pakistani territory.
—–Agencies