With one million Britons of Pakistani origin, and as the former colonial power, Britain has a unique relationship with Pakistan. But concerns about Britain's vulnerability to bomb attacks planned by Pakistan-based militants -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that three-quarters of the most serious plots investigated by British authorities had links to al Qaeda in Pakistan -- has made for a rocky relationship.

Irfan Husain, a columnist for Dawn newspaper who divides his time between Britain and Pakistan, writes that these tensions are being worsened by the problems Pakistanis have in obtaining visas to visit Britain.

"It is true that Pakistan is increasingly viewed as the epicentre of Islamic terrorism. Many plots, real and imaginary, have had their roots in the badlands of Fata (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas)," he writes. "Many young Brits of Pakistani descent have travelled to remote parts of the country to receive training in bomb-making. But the point is that these young men do not need visas to return to Bradford and Wolverhampton. Being born in Britain, they enter their country without let or hindrance."

Among those denied entry were members of the Lahore Pipe Band hoping to take part in a world championship in Scotland, a trade delegation, a well-known columnist, and a guitarist.

It's not entirely clear whether the visa problems are driven more by bureaucratic bungling than fear of terrorism. The Guardian newspaper says that several thousand Pakistani students hoping to start university in Britain are facing delays of three months or more for visas because of a "bureaucratic fiasco" - after a reorganisation, visa applications from Pakistan are now processed in Abu Dhabi.

Husain argues that by denying entry to the likes of writers and musicians, Britain is compounding the very problem it wants to contain - the spread of extremism. These are the kind of people who should be made welcome in the west, he says. "Given the position they enjoy in Pakistan, they can influence many to see that the enemy is not the West, but the forces of darkness that have gained the ascendancy in our own country. By turning them down, the British government only provides ammunition to those who are convinced of the West’s inherent anti-Islam policies."

In any case, most security analysts would argue that the main  concern is not about Pakistanis coming into Britain; it is about Britons of Pakistani origin leaving the country to attend militant training camps based in Pakistan. On this subject, Stephen Tankel has an interesting post about signs of growth in the operations of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant groups. Based in Pakistan's heartland Punjab province, these groups were initially focused on fighting India over Kashmir, but are increasingly seen as a potential or direct threat to the west.

"In the past JeM and LeT were valuable to al-Qaeda because of what is called the 'Kashmiri Escalator'. A disproportionate number of British Pakistanis are of Kashmiri decent and those interested in making contact with a militant group often can employ familial connections in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to find their ways to Lashkar or JeM," he writes. 

"Recruits procure training from one of the two groups, after which some of them are passed on to al-Qaeda operatives who are often in the FATA. In 2009 British security officials estimated that approximately 4,000 people were trained in this way since 9/11..."

The apparent growth of these two groups in the heart of Pakistan, he writes, give pause for thought about the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. "Enormous sacrifices are being made to keep Afghanistan free from al-Qaeda and its allies. Meanwhile, next-door some of those same allies are building away in the seemingly safest of havens."

The argument about who is responsible for British citizens seeking training in militant camps in Pakistan is a complex one - both countries tend to blame the other. And as Amil Khan wrote in this post last year, the attitude of British Pakistanis to Pakistan is far more layered than a simple question of which country should take the blame when something goes wrong.

But if one of the aims is to stop young British Pakistanis from being drawn towards hardline Islam, and at the same time offer them an alternative image of both Britain and Pakistan, why ban the bagpipers?

Memories seem to be short in the British government when it comes to Kashmir. Foreign Secretary David Miliband stirred up a diplomatic row over the region during his visit to India earlier this month. As this piece in The Times says, Miliband angered Indian officials by giving what they described as "unsolicited advice" on Kashmir, over which India has three times gone to war with Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947 and over which it is in no mood to be lectured by outsiders, let alone the former colonial power.
It was on a visit to Pakistan and India in 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of those two countries' independence that the then British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, also got into trouble over Kashmir. Cook, who also served the Labour government, was forced to row back from suggestions that Britain might help resolve the long-running dispute. His intervention cast a serious shadow over the visit by Queen Elizabeth, who was at one point forced to cancel a long-planned speech.
The visit, during which the queen was accompanied by Cook, went downhill after that, and at one point a senior British diplomat was seen sitting, head in hands in despair, on the pavement outside Chennai airport. There were even suggestions, denied of course, that the British High Commissioner might be recalled. Tony Blair, then prime minister, had to patch up ties by assuring his Indian counterpart, Inder Kumar Gujral, that London would not meddle in Delhi's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.
One wonders whether Miliband was reminded of all this before he went to India, and if he was, why did he walk into the Kashmir minefield once again. Or maybe he wasn't, which poses a different set of questions about competence and institutional memory at the Foreign Office.

Pakistani media have welcomed President Pervez Musharraf’s exit and are urging the coalition government to tackle a worsening economy and extremist forces.

Now that Musharraf’s nine-year reign has come to a grinding halt, what do you think the priority for his successor should be?

Should it be containing militant violence or attending to Pakistan’s mounting economic ills of poverty and corruption? And who do you think is up to the task of replacing Musharraf?

Foreign Secretary David Miliband says Pakistan has made democratic progress and should be re-admitted to the Commonwealth.

He has pointed to the extension of press freedoms and the re-establishment of constitutional rules. New Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), whose leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, was sworn in last month.

He has promised to cut back on ministers’ perks and re-establish student and trade unions.

Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in November 2007 because of President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule. It had previously been suspended in 1999 as well, after Musharraf seized power in a coup.

Do you think the time is right for it to be re-admitted? Could it be that the organisation — and much of the West in general — has failed to appreciate the dangerous security reality in which the country lives, with large areas of its border regions sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda?