Kayani cancels London visit

Kayani was due to meet the Britis­h Defenc­e Secret­ary Liam Fox.

LONDON: Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has cancelled a visit to London for talks on Monday, the British Ministry of Defence said, amid growing US allegations of Pakistani links to insurgents.

Kayani had been due to meet with British Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

"My understanding is that the meeting was cancelled due to diary commitments," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP, adding that the meeting had been due to cover an "overview of defence matters."

The spokesman would not say when Britain received notice that the meeting had been cancelled.

US officials last week accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of involvement in the September 13 attack on its embassy in Kabul and a September 11 attack on a NATO base in central Afghanistan.

Kayani, a former ISI chief, on Friday said the US accusations that the agency was supporting the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network were "very unfortunate and not based on facts".

Kayani called his top generals for an extraordinary meeting at the weekend.

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