Washington:US President Donald Trump met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Oval Office on Thursday. Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who was hosted by Trump for lunch at the White House early this summer, accompanied Sharif for the meeting, which was also attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Before the meeting, the US leader called the visitors “great leaders”, a sign of thaw in US-Pakistan ties.
“We have a great leader coming, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the Field Marshal. Field Marshal is a very great guy, and so is the Prime Minister, both, and they’re coming, and they may be in this room right now,” Trump said, speaking to reporters.
The meeting followed a trade deal between the US and Pakistan and came shortly after Trump and Sharif very briefly met at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, when the US president held a multilateral meeting with leaders from Arab nations and others, including Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.
Sharif arrived at the White House around 4.52 pm and was greeted by senior administration officials. Trump signed several executive orders and was speaking to reporters when Sharif and Munir arrived at the White House.
The Pakistani PM’s motorcade was seen leaving the White House around 6.18 pm, according to the White House pool.
News agency ANI reported the two Pakistani leaders had to wait for nearly half an hour to meet Trump, a claim NDTV could not independently verify. The White House press pool pictures also showed Munir and Sharif waiting at the White House as the US President completed his engagements.
