ISLAMABAD, July 26: The visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was thoroughly amused when at the joint press conference with Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on Thursday he was asked to comment on a report about his key aide’s role in mending fences between the self-exiled Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto and President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

When Mr Miliband’s attention was drawn to a recent report in The Guardian claiming that his political director Sir Mark Lyall Grant, who was previously the UK High Commissioner to Pakistan, had been able to help iron out differences between MS Bhutto and President Gen Musharraf, he made light of it. “I am always impressed by the devotion that people around the world have to the British Press.

“So I congratulate you on following the British Press rather more closely than I have over the last three days,” the sharp-witted British foreign secretary told the questioner. His comment instantly made Mr Kasuri chuckle. The beaming British foreign secretary did not stop at that and went on to say: “And I’m always impressed by the brilliance that is adduced to the British civil service which seems to have powers that are imagined to be boundless. And while I’m of course very proud of the professionalism of our civil servants, I think that they haven’t yet learnt how to walk on water or do all the things that are sometimes ascribed to them.”

On a more serious note, Mr Miliband said: “Obviously the questions of internal Pakistani politics are matter for Pakistani politicians rather than for visitors.”