Education, trade, security: New UK envoy spells out agenda for Pakistan

PMs of both counties set target to increase bilateral trade to £3b by 2015.

ISLAMABAD:

Bilateral trade, education and security issues will be top of the agenda between United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan over the next few years, according to the new British High Commissioner to Pakistan.

“The partnership between Britain and Pakistan is very important. I want to make this partnership even better,” Philip Barton, who took up charge two weeks ago, said this while talking to a group of media persons at the British High Commission on Thursday.

The high commissioner called his new assignment an “absolutely dream posting” and laid out his plans for the term of the posting.

“I think there are three areas where I am keen to make a personal difference: trade, education and security,” he said.

Security

Barton said that he was “very, very conscious that here in Pakistan the country and the people have suffered more from terrorism than many other parts of the world over the last few years.”

Barton said, “It is clearly a very big challenge. We are here to cooperate with the authorities and security forces in any way that we can help.”



The UK officials were discussing the security strategy with the government and cooperating on improving judicial systems for bringing terrorism suspects to justice.

“We are providing practical assistance in areas like how you counter improvised explosive devices and we will carry on working in that area over the months ahead,” the high commissioner said.

Barton has taken charge of the British mission in a year when NATO troops are expected to pull out of Afghanistan and when Pakistan itself is struggling with internal militancy threats.

However, much like his predecessor, Barton comes with some experience on Pakistani and South Asian affairs.

Barton, a career diplomat, has also worked as first secretary in New Delhi in 1994 focusing on a range of foreign policy subjects, according to the UK government’s official website.

Later, between 2008 and 2010, he worked on the UK’s relations with South Asian countries, foreign policy issues and affairs pertaining specifically to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in different roles at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office, according to gov.uk.

He said that his most immediate posting before arriving in Islamabad was as the Deputy Head of the Mission in the British embassy in the United States.

Trade, business

On trade, the high commissioner said Prime Minister David Cameron and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif have set a target of increasing bilateral trade between the two countries to £3 billion by 2015. The current volume of trade between the two countries stands at around £2 billion.

Barton said he would make the trade target a “personal priority”, encourage British entrepreneurs to do business in Pakistan.

“It means working with the government here to try to help ensure the economy grows and develops and that the environment here for business and investment from outside is as good as it can be,” he said. Barton said the future of Pakistan was linked to the future of its young people, the children and students.

Education

He said the UK is devoting a considerable part of its development assistance programme for to education throughout Pakistan. The money is being spent for “making sure that more children, particularly girls, can go to schools” and for ensuring improvement in the quality of teaching.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2014.