ISLAMABAD, 29 March 2005 — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit Pakistan next month to address the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) ministerial meeting here and for talks with the country’s leaders, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
“The Chinese prime minister is arriving in Islamabad on April 5 on a two-day visit to address the conference to be attended by foreign ministers from 26 Asian countries,” Jalil Abbas Jilani told a press briefing in here yesterday.
Jilani said the conference will be preceded by a high-level seminar on “Economic Cooperation in Asia” on April 5.
The Chinese premier will be the keynote speaker at the seminar. He said that the ACD, which presently comprises 26 countries from East to West Asia, would adopt two documents — the Islamabad Declaration and Islamabad Initiative — envisaging a roadmap for future cooperation among member states.
The First ACD Ministerial Meeting was held June 18-19 2002 in Cha-Am, Thailand, nearly two years after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra first proposed creation of the ACD.
Jilani said Wen will meet with his counterpart, Shaukat Aziz, and President Gen. Pervez Musharraf during his visit.
This will be Wen’s first official visit to Pakistan after assuming the premier’s office.
Wen’s visit “is part of a series of high-level contacts between Pakistan and China,” Jilani said. Jilani said Pakistan and China will also sign bilateral agreements during Wen’s visit, which he hoped would take economic and political relations between the two countries to new heights. He gave no other details.
China, Pakistan’s biggest supplier of defense equipment, is accused of providing it advanced ballistic missiles. Pakistan, which has developed short-, medium- and long-range missiles, denies the charge.
