PAKISTAN: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband backs militant reconciliation efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Record ID: 561400

  • Title: PAKISTAN: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband backs militant reconciliation efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan
  • Date: 21st April 2008
  • Summary: WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE WITH BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY, DAVID MILIBAND (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAVID MILIBAND, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY, SAYING: "We should negotiate with those who are willing to negotiate and we should reconcile with those who are willing to reconcile. And even in the Irish situation where large numbers of people did reconcile but some refused to reconcile, we did not negotiate with those who refused to reconcile. Those who are willing to renounce violence, I think it's important to reconcile with them." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAVID MILIBAND, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY, SAYING: "But there is no question that across the Afghan-Pakistan border is an area that is of major interest to us - to the United Kingdom - because the origins of a significant amount of terrorism that we face has links back to here. So we want to work very closely with the authorities here on security issues." WIDE OF MILBAND SPEAKING CAMERAMEN MILIBAND LEAVING
  • Embargoed: 6th May 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA4BXLSZJ63I7XJ5Q3ZQN7AL917
  • Story Text: Britain backs efforts to reconcile with Islamist militants on the Afghan-Pakistani border, the source of a significant amount of terrorism Britain faces, Britain's foreign minister said.
    But there will be no quick solution to terrorism, either through military means or negotiations, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar.
    "We should negotiate with those who are willing to negotiate and we should reconcile with those who are willing to reconcile," Miliband told a news conference on Sunday (April 20).
    A new Pakistani government, facing widespread opposition to Pakistan's alliance with the United States, has called for a reassessment of efforts against militancy and has said it will open negotiations with militants.
    That has raised questions about Pakistan's security policy, especially with staunch U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf, who has directed security policy for years, politically weak since his allies were defeated in a general election in February.
    "Those who are willing to renounce violence, I think it's important to reconcile with them and to make sure that they find place within the political process," Miliband said.
    Britain, the former colonial power in south Asia, wanted to work very closely with Pakistan on security, he said.
    "There is no question that across the Afghan-Pakistan border is an area that is of major interest to us - to the United Kingdom -- because the origin of a significant amount of terrorism that we face has links back to here," he said.
    A team of four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in attacks in London in 2005 had links to Pakistan, as did a group arrested in August 2006 who authorities said were planning to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.
    Miliband met political leaders in Peshawar on Sunday as well as some victims of terrorism.
    The city is the capital of North West Frontier Province, where a secular ethnic Pashtun nationalist party defeated an Islamist alliance sympathetic to the Taliban in February's elections.
    Britain has 7,500 troops battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency over the border in Afghanistan where there are increasing calls for talks with the militants.
    Late last year Afghanistan expelled a senior U.N. official and another from the European Union, after accusing them of holding talks with the Taliban and paying cash to the group.
    EU and U.N. officials insisted the pair, one British and the other Irish, were only meeting tribal elders and the whole affair was a misunderstanding.
    Miliband is due to hold talks with Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Islamabad on Monday (April 21).
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