London:
Reeling under anti-US public sentiments, Pakistan has asked Britain, which has "undoubted influence" over Americans, to mediate with the Obama administration in its dispute over the killing of 24 of its soldiers in a NATO attack that has frozen their ties.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke to Foreign Secretary William Hague soon after the incident, and asked him to act as a "go-between and mediator" to help achieve a "better understanding" between Pakistan and the US, Pakistan's High Commissioner here, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said.
Hague responded sympathetically to the request made by Khar on Sunday, Hasan told The Guardian.
"We are appealing to Britain to use its undoubted influence with the Americans to force them to review their policy towards Pakistan and change tack before it is too late.
"This is an opportunity for the UK to show that it has a very different attitude to Pakistan and it is not trying to hide behind the US. We are asking (Premier) David Cameron to tell (US President Barack) Obama to think again about how the US treats Pakistan," he said.
The request to Britain to mediate comes amidst a row in Pakistan over a two-part BBC documentary titled 'Secret Pakistan', which was shown there over the weekend, and which led to some cable operators in the country stopping the dissemination of the BBC World channel.
According to Hasan, most Pakistanis believe that last Saturday's NATO attack, the latest in a series of fierce rows between the US and Pakistan this year, was a deliberate provocation by US forces attached to NATO and Afghan army.
He alleged that the US disregard for Pakistani sovereignty and democracy threatened to make it impossible for Islamabad to continue cooperating with it on counter-terrorism and an overall Afghan settlement.