LONDON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Britain commended Pakistan's foreign service for producing well-rounded diplomats who are "alive to the concerns of others."
In a speech to the Pakistan Foreign Service Academy in Islamabad Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she was "intrigued by the sheer number of countries who have sent their diplomats through its doors - from Africa, from Europe, from Asia and from Iraq."
"More than ever before national interests cannot be defined in isolation from the interests of others," Beckett said.
The role Islamabad currently plays in international development has profound implications for diplomacy and for diplomats, she added.
"We have always been in the game of building strategic alliances and countries have always come together or drifted apart over specific issues," Beckett said. "But today, the partnerships we forge have to be longer term, the international consensus we build wider and deeper."
Still, the partnership is in danger of a destructive extremist propaganda effort at a time when global issues such as climate and energy security, investment flows, global trade and illegal migration are uniting the world, she said.
Nevertheless, "I do not see a clash (of civilizations) as inevitable at all. And there is much that Pakistan - as a leading light in the Islamic world - and the UK can do, together, to prevent it," Beckett said.
