ISLAMABAD, 21 September 2003 — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is heading to the United States to address the United Nations General Assembly and meet close ally President George W. Bush for the second time in four months.
Musharraf is accompanied by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid and his wife Begum Shehba Musharraf, the Foreign Ministry said.
His address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday will cover terrorism, relations with rival nuclear neighbor India, postwar Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East and disarmament.
He is also due to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Musharraf is one of Washington’s most pivotal allies in the war on terrorism.
His reversal of Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan’s Taleban regime and his country’s arrest of some 500 Al-Qaeda suspects has earned Islamabad more than $1 billion in loans, grants and fees, a $1 billion debt cancellation and the rescheduling of one third of its foreign debt.
