PRIME MINISTER Nawaz Sharif arrives in Washington next week to meet President Barack Obama and other senior US officials.

There has been surprisingly little discussion about the trip in the press and media thus far. It needs to take place so that the readout is not as skewed as it was at the time of the Nawaz Sharif-Manmohan Singh meeting in New York.

The Pakistani (and Indian) media tore into both premiers for the optics surrounding their New York meeting, forgetting that such meetings, held in difficult times, are meant to have largely symbolic value. Meeting was better than walking away for both sides, period.

The benefits will accrue down the line in terms of creating an opening to continue the conversation. The alternative was to take to jingoism and squander the opportunity. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

The goal of the Washington visit is not to achieve any major breakthroughs either; thus the need to manage expectations beforehand.

Making the trek to Washington is the right thing to do for the Pakistani delegation. And the fact that the Pakistani prime minister is being hosted in an ‘official visit’ instead of a limited time slot for a Sharif-Obama meeting in New York during the UN General Assembly session signals the continuing importance of this relationship.

The symbolism is also powerful given that the Pakistan government is new to office. It was not too long ago that questions were raised as to how a PML-N government would fare with the US despite its relatively more nationalistic positioning on foreign policy issues as compared to its predecessors.

There is also the age-old concern that Pakistan-US relations are individual-led (rather than institutionalised) and that regime changes can potentially affect their course.

Finally, there are lingering concerns that people on both sides may have grown so tired of dealing with the complexities of this relationship that come January 2015, both would happily downgrade it to a bare minimum. The timing of this visit is just right to lay any such concerns to rest.

So much for the optics. On the substantive aspects, the message must be to remain realistic.

One knows of few other relationships which are universally acknowledged to be so important and where both sides have worked intensely as ‘frontline allies’ for years but which are still marked by such angst and significant divergences on how each perceives their interests on issues of mutual concern.

The tensions in the relationship over the past decade are no secret. But too often genuine disagreements on ‘interests’ have been couched as the ingratitude of the other, lack of sincerity as a partner, deliberate connivance to undermine the other, etc.

In reality, these two sides have genuinely felt that the way their respective national interests will be served is diametrically opposed to the other side’s understanding.

If one were asked to draw up a list of issues that either side considers central to the relationship, the following would definitely find mention: Pakistan’s links with the Haqqani network; anti-India militant outfits on Pakistani soil; Pakistan’s ties with Iran (specifically the Iran-Pakistan pipeline); safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons; nuclear energy cooperation; enhanced market access to Pakistani exports; etc.

To be sure, there are other issues on which respective visions overlap more neatly. And yet, the collective weight of this list can’t be dismissed.

The general feeling in the US is that Pakistan’s strategy in Afghanistan has cost the US victory against the insurgency; Pakistan’s claims that it is no longer treating certain Islamists as assets is not accepted; and Pakistan’s position on India is not necessarily seen as entirely rational.

The Pakistani outlook detests this view and has felt for some time that it would be worse off doing what the US has been asking for on these counts. The US of course finds the Pakistani position to be misplaced.

Pakistan, on the other hand, feels that a civilian nuclear deal is a virtual right given that India received it and also that it can’t do without the Iran-Pakistan pipeline at this point. The long-standing Pakistani demand about market access is seen as the least Washington can do as a quid pro quo for Pakistan’s support over the years.

For various reasons — which again Pakistanis don’t see merit in — these demands have been non-starters in Washington.

The point here is not to question the wisdom of the respective positions. It is to emphasise that these divergences are beyond cosmetic. Both sides truly believe in their stances and feel deprived (or find it impossible to accommodate) if they are asked to bend further or stand down.

And there are no easy fixes in terms of finding overlaps that would make for a happy coming together on these issues either.

Policymakers in Washington and Islamabad are well aware of the situation. Their challenge during the upcoming visit will be to finesse their divergent preferences such that they leave reason for serious negotiations to continue on the specific contentious issues in the wake of the Washington engagement.

The media also needs to accept these realities and treat these bilateral engagements with reasonable expectations.

The happy marriage metaphor is unlikely to apply to the Pakistan-US relationship for the foreseeable future. There are not enough strategic convergences for it to make that cut. The key, however, is for the two sides to continue talking on the tough issues and for the leaders to bless these efforts from time to time.

This is what will keep voices who have argued for outright ‘containment’ of Pakistan on one side and consider the US as an ‘enemy’ on the other from finding space when the number one imperative for sticking together — Afghanistan — is no longer front-page news 15 months from now.

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, D.C.