ISLAMABAD, 7 September 2007 — Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will be visiting Pakistan and Afghanistan next week, the Foreign Office of Pakistan and State Department of the United States announced yesterday.
Official sources told Arab News that “John Negroponte will be meeting President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and senior military commanders.”
This visit takes place after Pakistan and Afghanistan had held a summit-level Joint Peace Commission Jirga in Kabul of tribal elders from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Negroponte’s visit takes on an added significance with Pakistan hit by crises.
According to diplomatic sources the senior US official is also likely to meet leading Pakistani politicians.
“His visit’s main purpose is to review the ongoing US-Pakistan strategic partnership and bilateral counter-terrorism plans,” the source said.
Pakistan is not only rocked by a series of political crisis but is becoming a target for terrorists with the Taleban increasing its activities in Pakistan.
Meanwhile a faction of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League held a meeting here under the aegis of Secretary-General Mushahid Hussain. The meeting opposed the Benazir Bhutto-Musharraf power-sharing deal with at least 80 members of the PML (Q) threatening to leave the party if the deal is concluded.
But according to political observers many of these PML(Q) members are seeking an opportunity to leave the party and rejoin Nawaz Sharif’s party after he arrives in Islamabad on Sept. 10.
Pakistan Helicopter Attack Kills Two
In Miranshah, a Pakistan Army helicopter gunship yesterday opened fire on a vehicle in the troubled tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing at least two militants, officials said.
The attack on the pick-up truck took place near the town of Mir Ali in the lawless border region of North Waziristan, where the United States says Al-Qaeda and the Taleban movement have regrouped, the officials said.
