The Pakistan's High Commissioner to the UK, Dr Maleeha Lodhi, has said the country's Armed Forces were keeping peace in the region and playing an important role in promoting global peace as part of UN peace-keeping missions.
She stated this while speaking at a largely attended reception hosted by Defence and Nava1 Advisor Kamran Khan at the Pakistan High Commission here late Monday to mark the Defence of Pakistan Day on September 6.
"Pakistan's Armed Forces are not only keeping the peace in our region, but also promoting global peace and security", said Maleeha.
The envoy said Pakistan was the largest contributor to UN peace-keeping missions in the world today, adding the strength of its troops, participating in these operations was close to 9,000, which would reach to 10,000 in next two months. The latest deployment was in Burundi and Ivory Coast while the largest concentration of its soldiers were in the Sierra Leone.
Maleeha paid glowing tributes to martyrs, who laid down their lives in defence of the motherland. The envoy also paid rich tributes to Pakistani soldiers who were martyred in Somali and Sierra Leone while discharging their duties as part of the UN peace-keeping force.
She said Monday's reception was in remembrance of the sons of the soil who sacrificed their lives to defend the country, and kept aloft its flag.
Besides others, the reception was attended by Lieutenant General Rob Fry DCDS (Commitment), Lieutenant General A.M.D. Palmer (CBE), deputy chief, Defence Staff (Personnel); Adm and Mrs Richard Cobbold, director, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (RUSI); MP Khalid Mehmood, Shahid Malik, member, Central Executive Labour Party; and its Candidate from Dewsbury, officials of the British Ministry of Defence, diplomats, military and naval attaches from many countries, representatives of International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Risaluddin, Humayun Mughal, Waheed Akbar and Sahabzada Jehangir.