Signalling progress towards sustained improvement in bilateral relationship, Pakistan and the United States are reviving their institutional dialogue on economic cooperation in Washington as a key element of the partnership.
The dialogue takes place in the wake of an uneasy phase in the relationship in the last two years, during which a spate of controversies and disputes affected Islamabad-Washington cooperation in wide-ranging cooperation.
Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh reached Washington to represent Pakistan at the meetings of US-Pakistan Economic Working Group Dialogue on Thursday and Friday.
Accompanied by Minister of State Saleem Mandviwalla and a team of top economic managers, Dr Shaikh will lead discussion on furthering bilateral economic cooperation in development areas in meetings with US Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin over the next two days.
Shaikh will also hold discussions on bolstering bilateral relations with Ambassador Grossman, who is retiring next month as the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The finance minister will also have a meeting with USAID Administrator Dr Rajiv Shah.
A State Department official told Pakistan Today that the US considered economic cooperation vital to the overall relationship and agreed that the focus should be on advancing two-way trade instead of aid cooperation.
Typically, cooperation in the field of energy, a critical area for Pakistan, was discussed separately in the Energy Working Group meetings, but the two sides would also likely discuss it in the meetings this week.
The discussions in Washington are part of a series of working group meetings the two countries are having after a hiatus of about two years. A spate of episodes last year, including CIA contractor Raymond Davis killing two Pakistanis in Lahore, capture of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and the US unilateral raid on his hideout and killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in attacks on Salala checkposts seriously undermined the ties.
The two countries have scheduled working group meetings on energy, defence and security issues next month. These and other groups were formed as part of the strategic partnership between the two countries a few years ago.
