Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal to visit US this month

Islamabad: Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is set to visit the United States in the middle of this month, local media reported on Monday.

Citing diplomatic sources, The News International reported that Bilawal is visiting the US on the invitation of United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently held a telephonic conversation with Bilawal.

Marking the 75th anniversary of the US-Pakistan relations, Blinken, during his talks with the Pakistani Foreign Minister expressed the desire to strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries.

This comes at a significant juncture as former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan had levelled charges against the US for conspiring to oust him from power. The US State Department, however, had refuted all the allegations, saying that there is no truth to them.

The phone call to Bhutto-Zardari was the first contact between the foreign ministers of the two countries in quite a while. On September 24, 2021, then-FM Shah Mehmood Qureshi met Secretary Blinken on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York.