Islamabad, Aug 1 (IANS) Guests at a US hotel ate mangoes from Pakistan, with a former foreign secretary hoping that it will ‘sweeten’ US ties, it was reported here.
The ties between Islamabad and Washington became strained after the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout by US commandos.
The mangoes went through the irradiation at a facility in Iowa before arriving at the hotel where eager guests were waiting.
‘Twenty years, after 20 long years,’ said Nematullah Chaudhry, a leader of the Pakistani-American community in Chicago.
Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of mangoes in the world.
‘I hope they also sweeten our relations with the US,’ the daily Dawn quoted former foreign secretary Najamuddin Shaikh as saying.
Pakistani diplomats have also sent mangoes to hundreds of Americans, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani said the arrival of mangoes in the US was ‘the result of two years of strategic dialogue with the Americans’.
