Pakistan, May 3 -- British Special Representative for Afghanistan Richard Lindsay may have meant to sound even-handed, but his post landed in Islamabad as another unfair indictment of a state defending its people: Pakistan is asked to absorb cross-border terrorism with restraint, while the Afghan Taliban's shelter for the TTP is allowed to to fade into the background.

The Foreign Office was right to call the remarks "one-sided" and "devoid of a deeper understanding" of border realities.

Since the temporary pause announced in March, Pakistan says cross-border aggression, infiltration attempts and terrorist attacks by Afghan Taliban-supported proxies have killed 52 Pakistani civilians and wounded 84. In Bajaur alone, officials have counte...