Pak foreign office says American president is welcome

The Pakistani government welcomed on Thursday US President Barack Obama’s decision to visit Islamabad in early 2011 and invite his Pakistani counterpart to Washington the same year. Obama will become the first American president to visit Pakistan when a democratically-elected government is in place in the terrorism-stricken country.

Pakistan foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit said the authorities in Islamabad had received information from Washington, DC that Obama won’t stop in Islamabad during his upcoming trip to South Asia next month, though he has made a firm commitment to travel to Pakistan in 2011, besides inviting president Asif Zardari to Washington. The Pakistani government had earlier requested Obama to consider visiting to Pakistan before or after his trip to India early next month.

A senior foreign office official in Islamabad had said recently that the US president must visit Pakistan when a democratic government is in place. Reports emanating from Washington say Obama met a visiting Pakistani delegation that included army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani on the sidelines of the US-Pak strategic dialogue that began on Wednesday, ostensibly to discuss matters of mutual interest and assuage concerns about his visit to India starting November 5.

Sources in Islamabad said perturbed at the inclusion of a civil nuclear deal in Pakistan’s agenda for the Pak-US strategic dialogue, the Obama administration asked the government in Islamabad not to raise the vital issue during parleys prior to commencement of the dialogue. Pakistan would, however, still bring up the issue. “Owing to its concerns over nuclear proliferation, the US told Islamabad days before the commencement of the strategic dialogue that any discussion on the Pak-US nuclear deal on the lines of the Indo-US nuclear deal will be a futile exercise,” a Pakistani diplomat said.

However, he added, the Pakistani authorities had made it clear that the delegation would still push for the nuclear deal with Washington.

He said it was none other than foreign affairs minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who said Islamabad would seek the civil nuclear deal, akin to the US-India nuclear agreement. “We certainly seek that because we feel that there should be no discrimination,” Qureshi reportedly said.