Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Khalid Shamim Wynne are likely to visit Washington to take part in Pakistan-US strategic dialogue, sources said. Dates for the event are yet to be finalised, they added.
Earlier, reports on Monday quoted Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi as having told reporters at the Parliament House after attending the meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production that Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani would visit the US for strategic dialogue. However, ISPR contradicted the reports, saying Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was not visiting United States. Defence sources said that CJCSC General Khalid Shamim Wynne would accompany Foreign Minister Khar during the visit. However, this was not officially confirmed. US Embassy spokesman Mark Stroh said that no date had so far been set for the next round of strategic dialogue. "The strategic dialogue never stopped...we are committed to ongoing US-Pakistan talks including strategic dialogue process", he said.
He said that Washington looks forward to continuing engagement with Islamabad in various fields. Business Recorder made several attempts to contact the Foreign Office's spokesperson, but he was not available for comments.
Meanwhile, Senate secretariat contradicted a news item carried by a section of the press regarding the visit of the Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to US for participation in the strategic dialogue process.
The Secretary of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production clarified that neither the visit of COAS nor anything about strategic dialogue process came under discussion during the meeting of the committee held on July 16.
"The said item was neither on the agenda of the meeting nor mentioned directly or indirectly during the meeting, the Secretary of the committee has clarified, for purpose of record," a spokesperson of the Senate Secretariat said.
Comments
Comments are closed.