Part of Sri Lanka – in the House of Commons at 2:52 pm on 5 February 2009.
There is merit in that argument. When I have met the leaders of Pakistan during my four visits over the past 18 months, I have made the point that the modern, mortal threat to Pakistan comes from the terrorism within its own borders. The Government's and the military's attention to those problems is imperative.
Our overriding objective in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to deny al-Qaeda a base from which to launch attacks of the kind that we saw on