ISLAMABAD, Fen 27: British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Margaret Beckett on Tuesday said the United Kingdom would not link aid to Pakistan with its counter-terrorism related performance.

She said talks were possible with peaceful elements in the Taliban but not with the people who were hurling threats of more attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan.

“The doors of talks were closed to the people like Mullah Dad, the military chief of Taliban, who vowed to kill more foreign troops in Afghanistan,” Ms Beckett said while answering questions after delivering a speech on “The UK and Pakistan: partners in diplomacy” arranged by the Foreign Service Academy here.

She praised the role played by Pakistan as a frontline state in the war on terror and ruled out attaching any conditionality to aid to UK’s important strategic partner.

“We are keen to help tackle poverty in different countries, including Pakistan, and broaden future prospects for their people,” she added.

Ms Beckett supported Pakistan’s plan of fencing its border with Afghanistan and hoped that it would help restrict the cross-border movement. She said she had been told that Pakistan had dropped the idea of mining the border.

About US’s claims on Al Qaeda regrouping in North Waziristan, she said it was a matter of grave concern if it was true.

The British foreign secretary advised Pakistan and Afghanistan to stop trading charges and cooperate with each other in the fight against terrorism.

Earlier in her address, Ms Beckett said at a time when the global agenda was pushing all together, there was a pernicious extremist propaganda effort underway that there was an inevitable conflict of interests or clash of civilisations. “I do not see a clash as inevitable at all,” she said and added that there was much that Pakistan and the UK could do together to prevent it.

She underlined the need to respond to that not just by highlighting common values and common interests, but also by demonstrating a common purpose through concrete, collective action.

The British foreign secretary said while there was a small but vociferous brand of extremism that saw any cooperation between the Muslims and non-Muslims as abhorrent, the vast majority believed in helping each other.

She said cooperation whether in countering radical elements, in diplomacy or in intelligence and investigation had helped save lives. “This has been particularly true between the UK and Pakistan, where there can be no doubt that cooperation between the two countries has helped thwart terrorist attacks that could have killed many innocent civilians,” she remarked.

Ms Beckett praised President Pervez Musharraf’s initiative to build a wider Muslim consensus on the way forward, including the meting of foreign ministers of seven Muslim countries in Islamabad.

She observed that only a durable solution to that conflict would be two states -- Palestine and Israel -- living side by side. She said institutional structures had to be in place on the Palestinian side which would allow a fully independent and viable state. “I hope that the recent agreement in Makkah will prove to be an important milestone. We are keen to see what it will mean in practice,” she added.

The British foreign secretary said that international community’s long-term commitment had to be about helping the Afghans to build robust political and economic structures that brought stability, predictability and accountability to the running of any country, and helped them improve the security situation, where ongoing violence undermined that work.

“That is why Britain has announced to increase its forces on the ground in Afghanistan,” she added.

Ms Beckett said the role of multi-nation forces in Iraq was not one of an occupying force. "Our military forces are there in a supporting role with the mandate of the United Nations and at the request of the Iraqi government," she stressed.

She said that in the coming months, the UK would reduce its troop level in Iraq from the present 7,100 to roughly 5,500. She said the number of troops was 40,000 at the time of conflict and it was 9,000 two years ago.