WASHINGTON, Sept 5: Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s visit to Washington and his subsequent meeting with President George W. Bush does not mean that the United States was supporting one side or the other in the military-civilian dispute in Pakistan, US officials told Dawn on Friday.

“We are fully in support of democracy in Pakistan and this is going to be a main focus of the visit but the speculation that Prime Minister Jamali was invited in order to enhance his stature is not true,” said a State Department official while talking to Dawn.

When asked how Washington was viewing the visit and whether it would strengthen democracy in Pakistan, the official said the visit had no connection with Pakistan’s internal politics.

“It is a rescheduling of a visit we planned quite a while ago and it is not intended I guess as a US intervention in Pakistani democracy. We are doing business with the head of the government in Pakistan,” he added.

Reports in the US media have suggested that the US invitation to Mr Jamali to visit the White House for an official meeting with President Bush would strengthen his position at home.

Quoting speculations in the Pakistani press, some US newspapers also had reported that President Musharraf was thinking of dismissing the Jamali government but now it would be difficult for him to do so.

The reports said that the visit would strengthen Mr Jamali’s position and it would be even more difficult to remove him if he returns home with praises from the White House and the US Congress, which has long been urging the Bush government to press Mr Musharraf to accelerate the democratic process in Pakistan.

Commenting on these speculations, the State Department official said: “Yes I am aware of these reports and that is why I pointed out that this visit had been scheduled quite sometime ago and now we are finally able to reschedule it. When we postponed it back in March I believe, we already said it would be a while before it was rescheduled because of the heaviness of the White House schedule.”

He said that there were a number of issues on which the United States needed a high level consultation with Pakistan and “the Prime Minister’s visit would be a good opportunity for that.”

The US official said although President Musharraf is also visiting New York later this month, there was no clash between the two visits.

Asked why the president and the prime minister were both visiting the United States so close to each other, the official said: “As I said before, there are a lot of issues that we need to work out with Pakistan.”