Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells arrived for a four-day visit to Islamabad today.
The visit is part of her 10-day visit to the region during which she travelled to Sri Lanka and India before heading to Pakistan.
Wells is expected to hold meetings with senior Pakistani government officials and civil society members to discuss bilateral and regional issues, including Afghanistan and the Middle East tensions.
The US diplomat's visit to Pakistan comes in the backdrop of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's visit to the United States where he met with United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande in New York. In Washington DC, Qureshi met US lawmakers and exchanged views on Pakistan-US ties and important regional and other matters of mutual interest, including Afghanistan peace process and Kashmir issue.
The foreign minister had also held a meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In the meeting Qureshi emphasised on Pakistan’s desire for peace and stability in the region and assured his US counterpart that Islamabad was committed to play its role ending the prevailing tension in the region.
Furthermore, Qureshi told Pompeo that it was due to the joint peace efforts of Pakistan and US that after 40 years of long confrontation, the news of peace through political settlement was coming from Afghanistan.
He said that Pakistan was playing its sincere role for the common cause of peace and stability in Afghanistan.
Pompeo appreciated Pakistan for its sincere and mediatory efforts for a “political solution in Afghanistan”, “Afghan peace process” as well as for a peaceful neighborhood.
Wells' last visit to Islamabad in August 2019 had come a day after the Indian government had rushed through a presidential decree to abolish Article 370 of the Constitution that granted special status to Indian occupied Kashmir.
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