ISLAMABAD, 9 November 2004 — US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage arrived here late yesterday for talks with Pakistani leaders on Iraq, Afghanistan and terrorism, the Foreign Office said.
Armitage will meet President Pervez Musharraf, Premier Shaukat Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri as well as holding formal talks with Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar today, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said.
The wide-ranging issues to be discussed during the talks include cooperation in defencse and war on terror.
“Pakistan would like to have stable, durable and longer-lasting relations with the United States,” the spokesman told reporters at his weekly briefing.
Dialogue between Pakistan and its rival India, regional and international issues and the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq will also come up for discussion, he said.
Armitage, who last visited Pakistan in July this year, is the first senior US official to come to Islamabad since the No. 2 presidential election in the United States.
Pakistan, a key US ally in the war against terror, has nabbed more than 500 Al-Qaeda suspects who sneaked across the border from Afghanistan after the hard-line Taleban regime was ousted in late 2001.
It has handed over to US custody some high-profile figures in Osama Bin Laden’s militant network such as Sept. 11 attacks co-planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
Some 70,000 Pakistani troops remain in the rugged tribal region near the Afghan border hunting down Al-Qaeda and Taleban fugitives.
Khan said Armitage’s visit was planned before the US poll, but it gained “added importance” after President George W. Bush was re-elected for another four years.
“Pakistan and the United States have worked hard in the past few years to strengthen bilateral relations in all spheres, particularly in defense,” he said. “Pakistan would like to consolidate these relations.”
Pakistan would continue to cooperate with the United States in the war on terror, he added.
