LONDON, March 6: Britain is ready to help Pakistan overcome “real difficulties” in tackling cross-border terrorism, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday as he welcomed his Pakistani counterpart to Downing Street.

Mr Blair discussed a broad range of issues with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz before the two hopped in a limousine together to address a conference in London on ending poverty in Asia by 2015.

“Over the past few years, cooperation in the fight against terrorism— and all the issues to do with cross-border infiltration, that cooperation has been a lot deeper than ever before,” Mr Blair told reporters.

“Look, there are certainly real difficulties that Pakistan faces. Now obviously we want to work with Pakistan to overcome those differences.”

Mr Blair recalled that British troops were deploying in southern Afghanistan, adjacent to Pakistan’s northwest, where they would be under Canadian command as part of the US-led multinational force in the central Asian nation.

“We have a mutual interest, the two countries (Britain and Pakistan), in making sure that that (mission) works, as of course does Afghanistan itself,” said Mr Blair with Mr Aziz at his side.

“Of course, we will always be agitating for more to be done, and naturally the Pakistani government will be pointing out all they are doing. But one thing that stands out very clearly in today’s world is the common interest in fighting this extremism.”

“It’s not in Pakistan’s interest to have an unstable Afghanistan next door. It’s not in Afghanistan’s interest to have a bad relationship with Pakistan. And we simply want the region to get the stability and growth that it so obviously wants to see.”

Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan was “committed to ensuring an environment that is peaceful in the world and in our region”.

—AFP