Pakistani foreign minister to visit Washington next week for discussion on strategy review: Holbrook

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (APP): Pakistani and Afghan foreign ministers will head their countries’ delegations here next week for talks with senior Obama Administration officials as part of discussions to formulate a regional strategy review, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said Wednesday. “Both delegations, the Pakistanis, headed by their foreign minister, (Shah Mahmood) Qureshi, and the Afghans, headed by their foreign minister, (Rangeen) Spanta, will both be coming to Washington next week.

“They will both meet with Secretary of State (Hillary) Clinton and interagency teams as we work together with them to formulate this review,” he told Public Broadcasting Service channel.

Holbrooke, who just returned from a visit to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, said the Pakistani and Afghan delegations visit for participation in the review is “a manifestation of a new, intense, engaged diplomacy designed to put Afghanistan and Pakistan into a larger regional context and move forward to engage other countries in the effort to stabilize this incredibly volatile region.”

The special envoy said an Indian delegation will also visit Washington a few weeks later.

Holbrooke said the policy review that President Barack Obama put into place, which is going on very intensely right now.

“It goes beyond what you say, but it’s not—we’re not ready yet to discuss where we’re coming out, but I will say that we had five hours of very intense meetings today, General Petraeus, myself, Bruce Riedel, Michele Flournoy, the new undersecretary of defence, about 30 other people spent four or five hours just discussing these issues and beginning to focus in on them.”

He said the Pakistani government and the Afghan government both sent a message to President Obama, asking if they could form similar parallel teams and participate in the review, making input and getting ideas.