Pakistan's intelligence agency has cancelled planned talks with security experts in the UK in protest at David Cameron's claim, made during his recent visit to India, that elements within the country were promoting the export of terror.

Speaking on the programme, the former UK High Commissioner to Pakistan, Sir Hilary Synott, said that the comments were only to be expected.

"There comes a stage when private remonstrations don't work and these private remonstrations had been going on for a considerable time," he told Today presenter John Humphrys.

"There's not doubt that the Pakistanis, I'm not sure whether they'd been assisting these groups -- they used to -- possibly they are not longer actively assisting them, but it's quite clear that they haven't been controlling them sufficiently. So there comes a time, and it's for a politician to judge this time, when these matters have to be said more strongly. And I guess that's what the prime minister judged at that time."

The BBC has learned that the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has cancelled a planned trip with other senior officers for counter-terror talks in London. A visit by Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, is still expected to go ahead.

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