KARACHI, 8 November 2004 — US President George W. Bush will pay an official visit to Pakistan next year besides traveling to some other countries of the region.

Foreign Office sources said that the US president had assured Pakistani leaders during their recent visit that he would pay a visit to Pakistan in the first year of his second term, if he was re-elected. This undertaking had been refreshed by him in his last September meeting with President Pervez Musharraf in New York, when the latter visited the UN headquarters to address the world body. He had an important and frank discussion with the US president on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session.

The new American ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, arrived on Sunday to take up his post as envoy to one of Washington’s top allies in the war on terror, the US Embassy said.

Crocker, a former senior diplomat in the State Department’s Middle East bureau, is expected to be formally received by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf shortly, though no date has been announced,

He replaces Nancy Powell, who served in Pakistan for more than two years.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is due to arrive on a visit to Pakistan today, according to published local media reports.

Pakistan’s ambassador-designate to the United States Gen. Jehangir Karamat had reached Islamabad before proceeding to Washington on Thursday next.

It is expected that he would present his credentials to the US president early next month.

The immediate task of both the ambassadors in Islamabad and Washington would be to strengthen the existing relations between the two countries and formulate itinerary of the visit of the US president to Pakistan and make it a success.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also invited the US president to visit his country.

Bush will be the first US Republican president after late President Nixon to visit Pakistan in more than 30 years. His father Bush Sr. visited Pakistan as vice president of his country in the 1980s.

Bush’s visit to Pakistan and India will greatly help resolve the dispute between the two South Asian neighbors.