Islamabad, Feb 18 (Inditop.com) Pakistan Thursday hoped that its strategic dialogue with the US would be scheduled expeditiously and would be held in the first half of 2010.
The strategic dialogue was imperative for building trust to remove the misperceptions or misgivings prevalent on both sides, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said during a meeting with Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for the Af-Pak region.
The strategic dialogue had been agreed on during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan last October, Online news agency reported.
The prime minister also stressed the need for fast tracking the dialogue on the energy sector to mitigate the power shortage in Pakistan, adding that the projects identified in the US strategy for regional stabilization should be implemented on a priority basis.
After being briefed by Holbrooke on “Operation Mushtarik” the US-led forces in Afghanistan are readying for, Gilani hoped that Pakistan’s concerns on account of an expected spillover of refugees and militants from Helmand into Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province would be addressed.
