December 15, 2002	Sunday	Shawwal 10, 1423

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WASHINGTON, Dec 14: The US State Department this week begins its first round of formal talks with Pakistan’s newly elected government and the leaders of a religious alliance opposed to US military presence in the region.

During her weeklong stay in Islamabad, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca is expected to meet “a number of senior officials from the new government,” a State Department official said on Friday.

Officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, however, said she is also expected to meet Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali. The US State Department has already sent a request for her meetings with Jamali and President Pervez Musharraf, they said. In addition, she plans to meet the speaker of the National Assembly and parliamentary leaders of major political parties.

Her expected meetings with the leaders of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal will be keenly observed both in Washington and Islamabad. The alliance rules the strategic Northwest Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan.

Some sources at the Pakistan embassy said that Ms Rocca may also visit Peshawar for a meeting with the new NWFP chief minister, but this could not be confirmed by other contacts.

In the United States, MMA is seen as a pro-Taliban religious alliance opposed to US interests in the region. Statements by certain MMA leaders saying that they want to stop the US-led search for the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan’s tribal areas have added to Washington’s apprehension.

At a press briefing in Washington on Thursday, Pakistani Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, however, assured the Americans that the MMA was not an anti-US alliance. Like other political parties in Pakistan, Qazi said, the MMA also favoured Islamabad’s decision to join the US-led war against terrorism.

President Musharraf joined the US intelligence campaign after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. It is generally believed that his decision annoyed the country’s religious circles who sympathized with Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime.