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PAKISTAN-POLITICS-TRUMP
Pakistan PM Imran Khan to meet Trump in US July 22: Pakistan foreign
ministry
ISLAMABAD, July 4, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Prime Minister Imran Khan will travel
to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump on July 22, the Pakistani
foreign ministry said Thursday, a rare visit between leaders of the sometimes
prickly allies.
The visit — Khan’s first to the US since coming to power last year — came
at Trump’s invitation, a Pakistani foreign office spokesman said at a weekly
briefing, adding: “The focus will be to refresh the bilateral relationship”.
He gave no further details.
The announcement comes as the US is seeking Pakistan’s help in finding a
way out of neighbouring Afghanistan, where American forces are now in their
18th year of war.
Ostensibly allies, the US and Pakistan relationship has always been bumpy.
The White House believes that the shadowy Pakistani military establishment
has long helped fund and arm the Taliban, both for ideological reasons and to
counter rising Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Pakistan denies the claims and says it has paid the price for its alliance
with the US in the so-called “war on terror”, with thousands of its citizens
killed in its long struggle with militancy.
Washington has long believed that a Pakistani crackdown on militancy could
be pivotal in deciding the outcome of the war. Trump and Khan — both
celebrities-turned-politicians whose love lives once made regular tabloid
fare in the US and UK — have already clashed.
Trump declared last year that he had cancelled assistance worth hundreds of
millions of dollars because Islamabad does not do “a damn thing” for the US.
At the time, Khan hit back at the criticism on Twitter, calling on the US
president to name an ally that has sacrificed more against militancy.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1946 hrs