ISI chief reaches Washington for talks

ISLAMABAD: Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar on Wednesday reached Washington on an official trip to the United States, the military said, with possible peace talks between Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban likely to be on the agenda.
It is General Rizwan Akhtar’s first official visit to the US since taking charge of the ISI last year.The trip comes days after President Barack Obama’s new Pentagon chief said the US was seriously considering slowing down the pace of troops withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Pakistani support has been seen as crucial in recent moves to persuade the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government to end their 13-year insurgency.A brief military statement announcing Akhtar’s trip said only he would “discuss issues related to intelligence” with his counterparts, whom it did not name.
But Pakistani security analyst Hasan Askari said the meetings would almost certainly touch on the issue of Taliban talks.“The possibility of dialogue between the Afghan Taliban with Kabul and the US, with special reference to any help that Pakistan could extend to facilitate the process, will figure prominently at the talks in Washington,” Askari said.
He said the ISI chief would brief his US counterpart and other senior defence officials about the recent improvements in Islamabad’s ties with Kabul and the ongoing cooperation between the two countries on border control.