LONDON - A top Pakistani diplomat has reacted strongly to Britain’s accusations regarding Pakistan harbouring extremists plotting to attack the UK.

The diplomat charged Britain of not doing enough to tackle home grown terrorists and treating Pakistan as a “whipping boy”.

“Sometimes for our British friends the truth is bitter. We have somehow turned out to be a ‘whipping boy’, there is a long history to that. The British need to search their own house. Britain has to take responsibility and they have to look into the issues which are driving these youth to extremism, which is the third-generation British - they weren’t born and bought up in Pakistan,” The Guardian quoted the diplomat, who refused to be named, as saying.

Referring to the massive airliners bombing plot, he said the terrorists who were nabbed and convicted were ‘born and brought up’ in Britain, and not in Pakistan.

The diplomat underlined that it was the Pakistani intelligence agencies that had tipped Britain regarding the plot following which it was unearthed.

He said the plotters would have succeeded in their plans if the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had not shared reports with London.

“It was Pakistan that informed Britain about this plot. We tipped them off, it was our security agency that tipped off the British … the British authorities were very much indebted to Pakistan. We had a major role in unearthing this plot. Had it not been for Pakistan (it) would not have been unearthed,” he said.

It may be recalled that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, during his Islamabad visit earlier this year, had said: “Three-quarters of the most serious plots investigated by the British authorities have links to Al-Qaida in Pakistan.”

Brown’s statement had angered Pakistani leadership and strained relationship between two countries, but things normalized later with President Asif Ali Zardari visit to the UK. (ANI)