Two issues seem to have dominated the discussion that took place between President Asif Zardari and British Prime Minister David Cameron when they met at 10, Downing Street, on Friday. One, as is de rigueur in any encounter between leaders of different countries and diplomats these days, related to cooperation in the field of terrorism and the two leaders concluded that they had to continue to work together to put an end to this blight. The other concerned bilateral relations in the fields of trade, business, defence, health and education. Pakistan would have to examine carefully the aspects of cooperation that we expect Britain to extend to us and vice versa before proceeding further, as both the areas have their failings. We have had a strikingly bitter experience of letting the US infiltrate CIA operatives into the country, which has cast a shadow over Pak-US relations. And, as a consequence, Islamabad had to ask Washington to withdraw a substantial number of those of its nationals, who were working here under the guise of trainers of our security personnel. Later, Britain was also told to take back 18 of its men, most probably, apprehending that they might also be engaged in activities that worked against our national interests. One would expect that against the backdrop of experience with CIA contractor Raymond Davis and others of his kind who went about the country armed with prohibited weapons, browbeating our citizens and defying our security agencies on being questioned, the envisaged cooperation would rule out the entry of such persons. Otherwise, instead of drawing any benefit, we would be at the receiving end of harm. The truth really is that we have had enough of Western cooperation in fighting terrorism. Whether it is Americans, British or other foreigners we should be wishing them goodbye; they tend to muddy the waters for us. The second issue i.e. enhancing the Pak-British trade content and help in other spheres would only be of any use, if we were to come up to the expectations required in this cooperation and for which we had done our homework. As it is, it is difficult to see that our industry would continue to produce goods that could be exported to Britain or other countries; the endless power loadshedding and break in the supply of gas for days have virtually crippled life, including of course industry. When the factories remained shut down for want of electric supply, it is hard to imagine they could meet foreign orders satisfactorily. First of all, we have to put our own house in order, put aside parochial feelings and go ahead with installing power stations that can re-energise our industry. We are not even building as beneficial and world acclaimed a project as Kalabagh Dam just to please pro-India lobby in the country. It is time to shelve differences at least on vital issues and work in a united manner to realise our dreams.