Pakistan assailed the EU on Wednesday over the European Parliament's decision to cancel talks with a delegation of Pakistani lawmakers because one was a pro-Taleban cleric. "I ... today lodged a strong protest with the EU presidency on the treatment meted out to Senator Samiul Haq," Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told a news conference after talks with senior European Union officials in Luxembourg. "We attach a lot of importance to our relationship with the European Union and incidents of this nature act as an irritant."
An eight-member delegation from Pakistan's Senate were due to hold talks on Kashmir and other issues with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the EU assembly in Brussels.
But security staff at Brussels airport stopped Senator Maulana Samiul Haq for 90 minutes, saying he needed clearance from the Belgian government to enter the country.
The meeting with the EU parliament was then called off.
"Pakistan is a pluralistic society. We have political parties of every view and hue," Kasuri said.
"We have ... religious political parties," he added. "Yes, at one time they supported Taleban, but so did a large number of Western countries. But it was not so easy for these political parties to change gear as it was for Western opinion."
He said he had written to Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country currently holds the presidency of the EU, to seek reassurances that such an incident does not recur.
Asselborn, speaking at the same news conference, described the incident as regrettable. "Nonetheless, we would see this as a blip against a generally bright background of our improving relations," he said.