Miliband backs Pakistan policy

Mr Miliband travelled to Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, and held talks on regional security with the chief minister and the region's governor. Mr Miliband also met relatives of people who died in recent suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks in the province to express sympathy, a government statement said.

In a press conference, Mr Miliband said his understanding of the strategy for reaching out to militants was that it would focus on groups who commit to non-violence, an approach he supported.

"Our position is very clear. We should negotiate with those who are willing to negotiate. We should reconcile with those who are willing to reconcile," said Mr Miliband, who also is expected to meet with newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and President Pervez Musharraf during his two-day visit to Pakistan.

"I think it is important to make sure to find them a place in the political process those who are willing to renounce violence," Mr Miliband said.

US and Afghan government officials believe militants use havens in Pakistan's tribal and border regions to orchestrate attacks against the US-backed Afghan government. Britain has troops inside Afghanistan, where a bloody Taliban-led insurgency has been raging, particularly in the country's south.

Pakistani officials also have blamed militants for a string of suicide attacks inside Pakistan in recent months that have killed scores of people, including the December assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in a suicide and gun attack.

The newly installed Pakistani government, led by Bhutto loyalists, came to power after defeating allies of Mr Musharraf, who has grown deeply unpopular in the country because of his alliance with the US in the war on terrorism and his increasingly authoritarian rule.

In a clear rebuke to Mr Musharraf's unpopular tactics of using the military to crack down on militants, which many Pakistanis believe worsened their security situation, Mr Gilani's coalition government has announced plans to hold talks with militants willing to lay down arms.

The provincial government in Peshawar, led by an ethnic-Pashtun secular party, has also planned to talk to militants.