PM’s adviser on overseas Pakistanis’ ‘humbleness’ and British envoy’s old announcement
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: On Feb 11, 2018 Express Tribune reported British High Commissioner to Pakistan Thomas Drew to have said that soon British Airways would start flight operation in Pakistan.
“We have suspended the flight operation due to unavoidable circumstances,” the newspaper quoted him saying almost 10 months back.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s friend and his adviser on overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari in his tweet while referring to formal announcement of resumption of British Airways operations earlier in the day termed it a “huge leap for Pakistan” and claimed: “Glad to have helped in my humble capacity.”
Meanwhile, official sources including a Foreign Office source said that resumption of British Airways flights to Pakistan has been on agenda between Pakistan and British authorities for quite some time. These sources said that even the British High Commission in Pakistan was quite supportive of Islamabad’s urge to see the British Airways flights resumed.
British High Commission spokesman Adrew Cuff, when approached, said that it’s not for the HC to comment on the level of support it provides for British companies. However, according to a diplomatic source, during the tenure of Philip Barton as high commissioner, the Commission started keenly pursuing the objective of getting resumed the British Airways operation to Pakistan.
The source said that during his discussion with Pakistan authorities, Barton showed his keenness to double the trade potential between Pakistan and Britain. He used to tell Pakistani authorities that Pakistan is a good country to work with. During his tenure and even after his departure from Islamabad, the High Commission continued supporting furthering Pak-British trade relations for which the resumption of British Airways operation has been one of the points of discussions. According to a diplomatic source, the British Airways had though suspended its operations in Pakistan a decade back following Marriot Hotel attack in 2008, the British government always wanted to get the operation resumed.
As a follow up of Brexit, it is said, the UK feels the urge to realign its ties with commonwealth countries besides furthering its trade relations with them. The resumption of British Airways operation to Pakistan, it is said, will benefit the economic interests of both the countries.
Global Village Space, a news website, on 18th Feb, 2018 ran an article titled “British Airways to start operations in Pakistan”. Referring to the talk of British Deputy High Commissioner Steve Crossman, the website reported that Crossman had stressed on taking more steps to increase trade between Pakistan and the United Kingdom, which then was very low against the immense potential.
“He said that the United Kingdom, like the rest of the world, wanted a prosperous and ‘stable’ Pakistan. Around 1.2 million Pakistanis are residing in the United Kingdom and are ‘contributing a lot to his country’s social and economic sectors,” the report said.
In the same article, the website reported British High Commissioner to Pakistan Thomas Drew as saying that soon British airways would start flight operations in Pakistan again. “We have suspended the flight operation due to unavoidable circumstances,” the website quoted Thomas Drew as saying.