Pakistan Nato dispute 'will not disrupt security co-operation with Britain for Olympics' The 35-year old mother of two, who has been Pakistan's foreign minister since last year, also said America would have to accept and accommodate itself to whatever rules Pakistan's parliament sets out for bilateral ties later this year. Despite pushing for direct talks between America and Afghanistan's Taliban for years, Pakistan has reacted angrily to suggestions that it can force factions it harbours to the negotiating table. "Clearly there are sometimes unreal expectations in terms of what Pakistan has or can do and what Pakistan cannot," she said. We have to make clear to [President Hamid Karzai] that whatever he and his government do it is up to us to assist him. The objective is peace and stability in Afghanistan. We would love to be on the sidelines, so we could concentrate on our own issues, our own challenges. Mrs Khar said that the West should learn the lessons of the lead-up to the Iraq war while attempting to confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions. She said Iran maintained that it was solely interested in civilian nuclear capabilities and wanted negotiation not confrontation. She said Iran had not taken a belligerent stance towards its eastern neighbours, even as it had raised tensions across the Gulf and against Israel and the West. "When it comes to our relations with Iran, we have only seen a better relationship," she said. As a youthful, modern face of Pakistan, Mrs Khar said it was her mission to challenge perceptions of the country's foreign policy that "were carved in stone." But she shrugged off suggestions that her appearance and gender were integral to her role. Rather, she said, the message was a demonstration that Pakistan's view of the world had changed more fundamentally than outsiders believed. I think what I say is more important than what my age is and what my gender is. British intelligence services rely on Pakistan to track and intercept radicals moving between Pakistan training camps and Britain. The security services maintain close operational ties to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and provide training to the country's police officers. Anatol Lieven, the author of Pakistan: A Hard Country, said London's ties to Pakistan were so dominated by the Islamic terrorism threat that Whitehall had to be independent from America. "Because of the diaspora and the radicalised bit of that diaspora, Britain has its own independent intelligence link to Pakistan," he said. We need direct intelligence as quickly as possible if people are going to Pakistan to receive training. We can't afford to wait for the flow to go through Washington and come back. But Britain will not come up with our own plan for an Afghan settlement.