Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron addresses the media in Ankara July 27, 2010. Cameron promised on Tuesday to fight for Turkey to join the European Union and dismissed opponents of Turkish membership as protectionist or prejudiced.UMIT BEKTAS/Reuters
David Cameron, the new British Prime Minister, is a refreshing presence in the world, but some of his frankness this week has been misplaced - quite literally, in the wrong places.
In both India and Turkey, he has given an unfortunate appearance of playing to the gallery, as if to ingratiate himself with his immediate audience, rather than giving a salutary message to those who really need to hear it. If Mr. Cameron had been in Islamabad or Karachi, a frank warning about the aiding and abetting of terrorism by some elements in the government - and among the people - of Pakistan might well have had a good, chastening effect. Public diplomacy too often consists of empty commonplaces.
But to have spoken in such terms about Pakistan in New Delhi was worse than useless. India and Pakistan are not precisely enemies, but they are certainly rivals with border troubles and mutual historical grievances; they have fought wars with each other and are now both armed with nuclear weapons. Indeed, Pakistan's original raison d'être was to be something other than India, though the two countries continue to have a great deal in common.
Pakistan has now threatened to call off President Asif Ali Zardari's visit to Britain and end the sharing of intelligence with the British.
Earlier in the week, Mr. Cameron called Gaza a "prison camp," which is very much an exaggeration, but an expressive way of describing the plight of Hamas's subjects, who are confined by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade (though he neglected to condemn Hamas at the same time). To have said this in Turkey, however, looked like demagoguery, after the controversy over the Turkish flotilla that headed for Gaza in May, and the sudden, steep decline of Turkish-Israeli relations.
Even the choice of Ankara as the place to criticize other European countries for resisting Turkey's application to enter the European Union was ill judged. If Mr. Cameron had gone to Berlin, Paris or Vienna to make the case for Turkish membership in the EU, he might have won some converts in some of the EU countries particularly opposed to the application, and understandably worried about a large influx of Turkish workers.
Mr. Cameron's trip to Asia was one of his first expeditions abroad since he and his party won the British election in May. He and his foreign-policy advisers need to revise his approach. If he wants to be genuinely outspoken, he should not choose easy audiences.