HYDERABAD, July 27: The Deputy High Commissioner of the United Kingdom in Karachi and director of Trade and Investment, Hamish St. Clair Daniel, has said that the UK and Pakistan are partners in many fields.

Talking to journalists at the press club here on Tuesday, he said that his country had made huge investments in Pakistan. Mr Daniel said that many students from Pakistan were going to the UK for higher education.

He said that richness of Pakistani culture could be witnessed everywhere in his country. Twenty years back there was no chicken tikka masala in the UK but now people in his country were enjoying this dish.

The diplomat said that last year 100,000 people from Pakistan had applied for UK visa and this year the number of applicants had increased to 200,000. He said there were visa problems due to difficulties in production line but expressed the hope that the bottleneck would be removed.

The UK High Commission had decided to introduce a fast track visa policy, specially for businessmen, he added. He said policies in Britain were formulated keeping in view the fact that three million Muslims were settled in the country.

Hailing Pakistan's role in the war against terrorism, the diplomat stressed that the war against terrorism had nothing to do with religion and terrorists were in fact trying to destroy civilization.

Mr Daniel did not agree with a questioner that only Muslim countries were being targeted. He recalled that in Yugoslavia, international forces had gone to protect Muslims.

He said it was known throughout the world that the dictator in Iraq had killed tens of thousands of innocent people. Life was much better in Iraq and Afghanistan today than in the past, he claimed.

He said Britain had also a legacy in Kashmir and added that 800,000 Kashmiris were living in the UK who influenced the country's policies. He said another area in which Pakistan and his country were working together was elimination of the evil of karo-kari.

He disclosed that 100 cases of karo-kari had been reported in his country. He said that in order to root out this evil, the UK would be working with Pakistan not only at the federal level but also at the level of nazims in southern Punjab and upper Sindh.

Mr Daniel said he himself had deep roots in Pakistan and Sindh and his father, who was in the Royal Air Force, had celebrated his 21st birthday in Karachi. He said he had visited Moenjodaro and the Sukkur Barrage and now he was in Hyderabad because it was the second largest city of the province.