PM presides strategy meeting for Pak-US strategic dialogue

ISLAMABAD, Mar 13 : Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani chaired a high level meeting to develop a comprehensive, coherent and well coordinated approach for the forthcoming Pakistan-US Strategic Dialogue here Saturday at Prime Minister House.

Pakistan-US Strategic Dialogue is scheduled to be held on 24th March in Washington. The dialogue would broadly cover economic, defence, security and social sectors.

A number of other proposals like structured-dialogue process envisaging sectoral track cooperation with the US to review the status of on-going programmes and projects will also be taken up in the talks.

The Prime Minister said that the objective of Strategic Dialogue is to enhance people to people strategic relationship which will bridge trust deficit.

Giving his vision to the participants, the Prime Minister said that his government’s objective is not only to upgrade the dialogue status enhancing Pak-US partnership to the ministerial level but also to develop a solid and endeavoring framework for long term Pakistan-US relations.
He directed all the concerned Ministries to identify specific programmes and projects in each sector in accordance with the national development priorities; both in short and long terms. He instructed the concerned Ministries to clearly indicate priority areas which require support and technical assistance.

Minister for Water & Power Raja Parvaiz Ashraf, Ms. Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Special Assistant to PM on Social Sector, Mr. Kamal Majeedullah, Special Assistant to PM on Water & Power, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Secretaries, Foreign Affairs, Petroleum, Water & Power, Commerce, Defence, Food and Agriculture, Finance, Information Technology, Science & Technology, Education, Interior and other senior military and civil officers attended the meeting.