<\/p>\n
Islamabad, Sept. 5 (TNS): Amid stained ties between two countries, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday for crucial talks with Imran government.<\/p>\n
Officials of Pakistan Foreign ministry received US delegation at airport.<\/p>\n
Pompeo is accompanied by US Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford and is scheduled to\u00a0meet Prime Minister Imran Khan\u00a0and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.<\/p>\n
He is also expected to meet Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa.<\/p>\n
The details of the US envoy\u2019s visit have been kept under wraps, but official sources confirmed that contrary to some reports, the prime minister would give him an audience.<\/p>\n
The US secretary of state on Tuesday said he was hoping to \u201creset the relationship\u201d with Pakistan ahead of\u00a0the trip and also announced that Zalmay Khalilzad, a high profile former US ambassador, had been named to a new role to lead peace efforts in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Pompeo\u2019s conciliatory remarks toward the South Asian giant come days after Washington confirmed plans to cancel $300 million in military aid over Islamabad\u2019s lack of \u201cdecisive actions\u201d in support of American strategy in the region.<\/p>\n
But the former Central Intelligence Agency director, who is making his first visit as his nation\u2019s top diplomat to\u00a0Pakistan, whose support is vital in the long-running Afghan conflict, said it was time to \u201cturn the page.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo first stop \u2013 Pakistan.\u00a0New\u00a0leader there, wanted to get out there at the beginning of his time in an effort to reset the relationship between the two countries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are\u00a0lot\u00a0of challenges between our two nations for sure but we\u2019re hopeful that with the new leadership that we can find common ground and we can begin to work on some of our shared problems together,\u201d added Pompeo.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I think there is a new government this time, most of this took place long before the prime minister was in power and I hope we can turn the page and begin to make progress. But there are\u00a0real\u00a0expectations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hopeful we can convince them to provide that assistance,\u201d he continued, adding that in his conversations with Khan, they had agreed that peace in Afghanistan was a \u201cshared goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pompeo also held out the possibility the military aid could be restored under the right circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were providing these resources when it made sense for the United States because the partnership was in a place where the actions of our two countries made sense to do that,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that arises again, I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll present to the president the rationale for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The visit comes as the relationship between the two countries hit a new low \u2014\u00a0after the cancellation of $300 million in \u2018aid\u2019 to Pakistan and a row over the contents of a telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Imran and Secretary Pompeo.<\/p>\n
The PTI government, however, after initial rhetoric is now treading carefully as Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi avoided giving a knee jerk reaction after the Pentagon move to cancel the amount under the Coalition Support Fund.<\/p>\n
Qureshi, nevertheless, reminded the US that the cancelled money was not aid but reimbursements of the expanses Pakistan had already incurred in the fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n
The foreign minister admitted that there was a near complete breakdown in communication between the two countries during the previous government.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad, Sept. 5 (TNS): Amid stained ties between two countries, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday for crucial talks with Imran government. Officials of Pakistan Foreign ministry received US delegation at airport. Pompeo is accompanied by US Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford and is scheduled to\u00a0meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77160,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77158\/revisions\/77160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}