Asif lands in Washington to hold talks with US officials

WASHINGTON: Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has arrived in the United States to meet Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss the matters pertaining to bilateral ties and the US South Asia and Afghan policy.

Asif was received by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Aizaz Chaudhry, but no American official came to greet the minister at the airport.

The minister will also hold meeting with the United States National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster during his three-day long visit.

Pakistan’s foreign minister will take up the matters pertaining to Kashmir, Afghanistan and bilateral ties during his interaction with the the officials of Trump administration.

In meetings, America’s South Asia and Afghanistan policy will come under discussion and the minister will also highlight Indian designs to foment terrorism in the region and its links with terrorists based in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s foreign minister’s visit comes days after the country’s top security body, National Security Committee (NSC), decided to form a sub-committee in order to chalk out a policy in the wake of United States President Donald Trump’s allegations of harbouring terrorists on Pakistani soil in his new Afghan policy.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had chaired the national security meeting in which top civil and military leadership gathered to discuss the situation in the aftermath of the new Afghanistan and South Asia policy of the President Donald Trump’s administration.