Cameron's remarks hampering aid: Ambassador to UN

Pakistani Ambassador to the UN said the British PM's statements have hampered international aid from coming in.

LONDON: Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah Hussain Haroon said on Thursday that British Prime Minister David Cameron's accusation of Islamabad promoting terrorism has hampered aid efforts for the flood-stricken country.

"Pakistan has suffered because of what David Cameron has said, because the British people will listen to their prime minister," The Daily Mail quoted Haroon, as saying.

The Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella group comprising thirteen UK charities, has so far raised 9.5 million pounds from the British public for the flood-affected people in Pakistan. However, experts have said that the amount is less than the money raised for comparable disasters, such as the Haiti earthquake.

Cameron, during his visit to India last month, had said that Pakistan could not "look both ways" in receiving billions of dollars in aid from Western nations while continuing to "promote the export of terror, whether to India or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world."

He later defended his comments, and said, "I think it's important, as I say, to speak frankly about these things to countries that are your friends.”