Pakistan, US agree to resume strategic dialogue

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United States have decided to resume the strategic dialogue process.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry held meeting with top Pakistani officials including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday. Kerry, the most senior US official to visit Pakistan since the May 11 polls, spoke to the media alongside Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz after talks with Prime Minister Sharif.

Kerry said the two sides had agreed to resume strategic dialogue to foster "deeper, broader and more comprehensive partnership" after a two-year period that saw relations stumble from crisis to crisis.

Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan had lodged a strong protest regardinng drone attacks which were against the country’s sovereignthy. Kerry said that US President Barack Obama’s policy regarding drones was clear and dialogue over the attacks continued with Pakistan.

Aziz added that the US had been informed that Pakistan would not launch an operation in North Waziristan.

US Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday invited Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for talks with US President Obama.

"To ensure that we continue our important bilateral conversation at the highest levels I have extended on behalf of the president of the United States an invitation to Prime Minister Sharif to meet with the president at a bilateral meeting with him in the United States this fall," Kerry said.

"I can tell you unequivocally that we do share a long-term vision of the relationship and I believe that in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif we have someone who's committed to try to grow that relationship," Kerry told reporters.

Washington is determined to move the relationship with Pakistan to a full partnership and find ways to deal with "individual issues that have been irritants over the last years", Kerry said, adding that Obama was looking forward to meeting Sharif "in a month or so in the US".