Newly-appointed British foreign secretary William Hague, who met foreign journalists in his first press conference on Thursday, made it clear that the new coalition government will not interfere in the dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
“It will not be our appro-ach to lecture other countries on how they should conduct their bilateral relations,” Mr Hague said. The Tory-LibDem coalition government, which stressed on “enhanced partnership with India” in the Queen’s spe-ech, welcomed the improvement in bilateral ties between Pakistan and India after talks between the neighbours were suspended after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008.
“That such relations are improved is of course important to relations in that region and the future peace of the world. But our approach would not be to tell those countries what to do, they must take forward their own bilateral relations,” Mr Hague said.
The foreign secretary, who told the House of Commons that he will visit Pakistan in the next few weeks, said that Afghanistan was the coalition government’s “most urgent overseas priority.”
Mr Hague, who again mentioned that the UK has a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, said the coalition government had “a new vision of a distinctive British foreign policy that will be a departure from the approach of the previous government — both in its reach and in its ambition.”
“First we reject the idea of Britain’s strategic shrinkage or inevitable decline, we think that Britain should do far more than engage with the emerging economies of the world and to build up relationships with countries in the Gulf, West Asia, Brazil, Japan, India, China,” he said.