Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said he has received a letter from US President Donald Trump seeking Islamabad's assistance in the Afghan peace process, reported South Punjab News.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry confirmed the same to Reuters, saying: "President Trump has written a letter. He has asked for Pakistan's cooperation to bring the Taliban into talks."
The prime minister, in a meeting with journalists, said that he had received the letter earlier today.
In the letter, he said, Trump has asked Pakistan to play its role in the peace talks which seek to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.
This is the first direct communication between the two leaders since Imran Khan assumed power in August.
Trump has been consistent in his criticism of Pakistan since he launched his South Asia and Afghanistan strategy despite multiple attempts made by the two governments to fix the problems in their ties.
Last month, a row that began with Trump's interview to Fox News led to a series of tweets by both the US head of state and PM Khan.
President Trump, while talking about the reasons for ending the over a billion dollar annual aid for Pakistan at the beginning of the year, said the country didn’t do “a damn thing for us”.
Prime Minister Khan had led the sharp reaction by political leaders to Trump’s tirade against Pakistan by hinting at review of foreign policy options and asking the US president to introspect on the real reasons for America’s failure in Afghanistan.
'Not a googly,' says PM
The prime minister said that the "Kartarpur initiative was not a googly; it was a sincere effort".
The "googly" remark was made by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who last week had said that Prime Minister Khan had bowled India a “googly” by taking the initiative of opening the Kartarpur border connecting Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Narowal district to Dera Baba Nanak in India’s Gurdaspur district.
Qureshi and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj got involved in a ‘war of tweets’ on Sunday, accusing each other of using the occasion for political gains, after the Indian minister for external affairs showed her displeasure over the "googly" remarks.
Swaraj through her official Twitter account alleged that Qureshi’s remarks had exposed that Pakistan had no respect for the Sikh sentiments and was doing it all for politics. “Mr Foreign Minister of Pakistan — your ‘googly’ remarks in a dramatic manner has exposed none but you. This shows that you have no respect for Sikh sentiments. You only play ‘googlies’,” she tweeted.
Using the same social networking platform, Qureshi termed Swaraj’s comments a “deliberate attempt” to “mislead” the Sikh community. He said that Pakistan had taken this initiative in “good faith”.
