U.S. Tries 'Friendship Song' Diplomacy in Pakistan

Pakistan and the United States set aside an escalating row over proxy warfare for a night of musical fusion by the moonlit shores of a lake, hoping to cement public friendships, and all that jazz.

In Washington, the White House exacerbated tensions with more demands that Islamabad clamp down on the Al-Qaeda-linked network blamed for attacks on U.S. targets in Kabul, but in the Pakistani capital, diplomats trod a softer path.

Hosting a concert by the shores of Rawal Lake, the U.S. embassy brought together America's "Ari Roland Jazz Quartet" and Pakistani rock band "Fuzon", capping the night with the "world premiere" of a special friendship song.

"Paint the colors of love in face of hatred. Let's forget all indignations and traverse all distances separating us," went the lyrics of the song entitled "no life without friendship", received by a somewhat bemused audience Tuesday.

The musical interlude was a rare light note in the saga of U.S.-Pakistan relations which could hardly be worse -- engulfed in accusations that Pakistani spies are involved in a proxy war in Afghanistan and still suffering from the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad on May 2.

Just one week earlier, the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, made unusually bold accusations that the Pakistani government is tied to the Haqqani network and blamed for the group for the siege of the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

The outgoing top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, then accused Pakistan of exporting violent extremism to Afghanistan and called the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

On the same day as the concert, several thousand Pakistanis took to the streets in the northwest and the country's biggest city of Karachi, holding protests against American demands for action against the Haqqanis.

But while political and military harmony elude the fragile anti-terror alliance, the musical pairing was a relative success, if only to a converted audience of hundreds, mostly the country's Western-educated elite.

"If you look around people here, if they look in their hearts they like their (Americans') lifestyle. We love fun, we love the people of America. It’s their policies that people here are a bit sensitive and emotional (about)," said 32-year-old rapper Waleed Mehdi.

"Jazz is the only form of music that's purely American. They (the bands) fused it. You won't believe, I had goose bumps," he said.

By the end of the night, revelers were up dancing, enthused by a rousing mix of patriotic Pakistani anthems such as "Jazba Janoon", penned for the cricket World Cup, and U.S. classics such as Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World".

"What we try to do is look beyond the politics of the moment, look beyond the relationship between our governments and try to make stronger relationships between our people," U.S. public affairs official Mark Davidson told the crowd.

The friendship song, he said, "will guide us as we go forward... because I believe and I know that when we work together we are far stronger than when we operate separately."

But in a possible nod to the trials and tribulations of managing the latest diplomatic crisis, Munter did not attend the concert.

Plans for him to play piano in a personal show of cultural diplomacy did not materialize. Instead on Tuesday, he met with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

The Americans' jazz set came first, drawing an enthusiastic response when they turned their double bass, saxophones and drums to Pakistani numbers such as Tere Bina Dil Nah Lagay, translation: "My heart is shallow without you".

The highlight of the set was when Pakistani tabla player Mohammad Ajmal sat on a red mat alongside 24-year-old Texan drummer Keith Balla, aka "Bam Bam" and their dueling drums kept the audience enthralled.

Alternative rock band Fuzon, well-known among Pakistan's youth, injected a modern flavor, bursting on to the stage in 1980s-style rolled up jacket sleeves, sunglasses, slick-backed ponytails and fedoras to liven up the crowd.

"They're kickass, they're simply kickass," enthused 24-year-old musician Nuqeet Khan, falling back on American slang.

"There's no politics in music, music is universal."