Visiting Foreign Secretary David Miliband Sunday said Britain wanted a long-term partnership with Pakistan to end militancy in its tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Miliband was in Peshawar city in northwestern Pakistan, close to the Afghanistan border, for talks with new local government leaders. He is due to meet Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Islamabad on Monday. “Britain is going to be a partner for a long-term. We are not here for a quick fix,” Miliband told a press conference later. “We are here for a long-term partnership with the country with whom we have very strong cultural, economic and political ties.” In Peshawar Miliband met provincial Governor Owais Ghani and Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti to discuss security issues and ongoing cooperation over development in Pakistan's tribal areas, officials said. A new government comprising secular parties has replaced the administration of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which ruled the rugged and lawless North West Frontier Province between 2002-07. Britain is providing development aid for Pakistan, especially in its troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a known hideout for Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants. Miliband said that this area was of significant concern for his country because of its links with terrorist incidents in Britain. “But there is no question that across the Afghan-Pakistan border it is an area that is of major interest to the United Kingdom because the origin of the significant amount of terrorism we face had links back to here,” he said. “So we want to work very closely with the authorities here on security issues.” Miliband also met Pakistanis who had been victims of terrorism. “And no one meeting the survivors and the relatives of those killed in recent terrorist incidents as I have met today could fail to recognize that terrorism is a problem for Pakistanis, not just a problem for the outside world,” he added. Earlier this month Britain's Home Secretary Jacqui Smith visited Pakistan and said that her country was urgently looking at ways to enhance anti-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan's new national government. Pakistan became a key ally in the US-led “war on terror” under President Pervez Musharraf in 2001, but its policies against militancy have come under scrutiny since Musharraf's allies were trounced in February polls. Pakistan has suffered a wave of suicide bombings this year in which around 250 people have died. Former premier Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide blast and gun attack on Dec. 27 last year. __
