BRUSSELS, May 17: Europe’s External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten arrives in Islamabad early next week with a clear message for President Pervez Musharraf: stamp down harder on terrorism and keep Pakistan on track for democracy and elections in October.

At stake is a further reinforcement of Pakistan’s newly-revived relationship with the European Union and access to millions of euros in EU aid and trade benefits available since Islamabad reversed its pro-Taliban policy and joined the international combat against terrorism.

“I will have great difficulty persuading the European Parliament to continue to support Pakistan as we would like, if it looks as though the government is moving away from what it said about democracy or the promises it made on dealing with terrorism,” Mr Patten cautioned in an exclusive interview with Dawn before leaving for Pakistan.

Mr Patten, who was Hong Kong’s last colonial governor and currently heads the European Commission’s powerful external relations directorate, will be in Pakistan and Afghanistan from May 20-23.

With escalating India-Pakistan tensions prompting concerns in Europe of another South Asian war, Islamabad’s relations with Delhi will figure high on the agenda of the Commissioner’s meetings with President Musharraf and Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar.

After years of watching India-Pakistan feuds from the sidelines, EU governments agreed in April that ignoring current South Asian tensions would be irresponsible and dangerous. “A dispute between two countries which have nuclear weapons is a matter of very great worry for us,” Mr Patten said.

The EU, however, was not out to play mediator, he insisted. “But what we can do as friends of India and Pakistan is to encourage the reduction of tensions by talking to both sides.”

“I will say to Pakistan what EU political directors said to India a couple of weeks ago, namely that despite the provocation of terrorism — such as the atrocity in Jammu recently — we hope that people on both sides will not lose sight of the importance of dialogue and confidence-building.”

But Mr Patten’s mission is about more than just attempting to build bridges between the two historical adversaries. EU governments are worried at what they see as Pakistan’s failure to fully implement pledges to persecute or hand over all perpetrators linked with terrorist activities in India. Many in Europe are increasingly concerned at Pakistan’s alleged sponsorship of Kashmiri terrorist groups.

President Musharraf’s speech in January pledging that Pakistani soil “would not be used for terrorism against anyone,” was an encouraging step, Mr Patten underlined. But more needed to be done. “Obviously one of the messages that I will be taking to Islamabad is that Pakistan should do everything to clamp down on terrorism,” Mr Patten said.

“We recognize that there were things that were promised in the January speech — arrests, the prevention of terrorism across the Line of Control in Kashmir and sending convicted terrorists to India — which would all contribute to the improvement of the situation.”

“I will be interested in what the government in Pakistan has to say about its attempts to prevent terrorism being generated by extremists on Pakistani soil,” Mr Patten underlined, adding that he wanted to be able to assure EU foreign ministers that Pakistani authorities were doing everything they could to make sure that melting snows in the Himalayas did not lead to an increase in terrorist activity in Kashmir.

“Europe is not seeking to take sides except in the sense that we are totally and implacably opposed to anyone who encourages terrorism,” he stressed.

Turning to Pakistani politics, Mr Patten cautioned that concerns over the April 30 referendum had “made it more difficult to persuade the European Parliament to ratify the EU-Pakistan cooperation agreement.”

The EU assembly and European governments would be watching carefully to see how the October elections are conducted, with the focus on the mechanisms that are put in place for the elections and on issues like freedom of assembly and the role of media.

“I hope there will not be more issues like the referendum which will concern people that perhaps the path to democracy isn’t as smooth and straight as we were assured it would be,” Mr Patten underlined.

The EU is “extremely well-disposed to sending an observation mission” to monitor the October polls. “But obviously we’d want to be assured that the mission could do its job properly and with reasonable security,” the Commissioner said.

“I think that there will be a great deal of interest in the European Union in what democracy is actually going to mean in Pakistan after the elections.”

Pakistan’s past experiments with democracy had run into problems of corruption and violence, Mr Patten remarked. “Nobody wants to see those reassert themselves.” The reintroduction of a democratic government which is also “highly competent, technically skilled and able to rise to the economic and social challenges that face Pakistan is a very tricky process. But obviously democracy should mean democracy and we hope that will be the case.”

Asked to give a reaction to President Musharraf’s plea for international understanding of the many challenges “including terrorism — facing Pakistan, Mr Patten said he had “no doubt at all” about the scale of the problem confronting the country.

“Trying to ensure that there is a stable political and constitutional structure which is pluralist and democratic and which has the ability to deal vigorously with terrorism and extremism is a very difficult task. We do not underestimate the challenge which President Musharraf has in front of him.”

“We hope we can encourage him to continue to take on that challenge in as open and transparent and as effective a way as possible,” Mr Patten said, adding: “I have no doubt at all that Pakistan will require great vigour and resilience in dealing with those problems.”

The Commissioner’s visit follows a series of quick EU moves to improve relations with Pakistan after September 11. Pakistan and the EU signed a new cooperation treaty last year which is still pending ratification by the European Parliament. A textile concession package went into effect in January.

While in Islamabad, Mr Patten will also sign a 50 million euro programme to promote Pakistan’s financial services sector.