Islamabad:
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will hold a bilateral meeting on Thursday with US President Donald Trump in Washington, in what managers describe as part of a renewed thrust to reset Pakistani-American links.
According to diplomatic sources, the Prime Minister will briefly go to Washington from New York, where he attended the session of the United Nations General Assembly, for the meeting with President Trump.
It will be the first meeting between the American president and the Pakistani Prime Minister at the White House since July 2019, when Prime Minister Imran Khan returned to Washington and met President Trump.
Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, had completely ignored Pakistan and had never even spoken to any of the Prime Ministers on the phone, and even less to invite them to the White House.
However, since President Trump took office in January, there was a dramatic and unexpected change in the Pakistan-American relationship.
Trump-Shehbaz’s next meeting is in the context of a notable thaw in relations between Islamabad and Washington. In June of this year, Trump held a rare one-on-one meeting with the chief of staff of the army, General Asim Munnir, in the White House, a signal that the icy approach to the Biden administration had given way to the more transactional but open-commitment style of Trump with Pakistan.
Diplomatic observers see the Shehbaz-Trump sector as a continuation of this reset. “The optics of the meeting of the army chief in June was important. This meeting institutionalized this opening,” said a senior Pakistani official familiar with the process at L’Express PK Press Club.
The Trump administration has also recalibrated its links with India, Washington being increasingly frustrated by the trade barriers of New Delhi and the inclination of Moscow following the Ukraine War.
The recent strains of the American links of India have opened a window of opportunity in Pakistan to project itself as a useful partner, in particular on regional security and the fight against terrorism.
Islamabad officials think that the meeting will focus on bilateral links, regional and international issues, including Afghanistan, cooperation against terrorism and commercial opportunities.
Analysts warn, however, that if Trump’s White House seems to hire Islamabad, reset remains temporary.
The Prime Minister will return to New York the same day to continue his Unga commitments.
