WASHINGTON, Oct 13 Pakistan and the US Congress agreed on Tuesday to work on a joint statement addressing all issues linked to the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.

The decision to issue such a statement was taken after a series of meetings in Washington between the visiting Pakistani foreign minister and senior US officials and lawmakers.

“We must address the concerns and fears expressed in Pakistan,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters after a meeting with Senator John Kerry, who chairs the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

“We will not allow Pakistan's sovereignty to be compromised and will not allow anybody to micro-manage our affairs,” he said.

Senator Kerry assured the Pakistani nation that the United States had no desire to manage its affairs. Washington, he said, also recognised the army's role in the war against the extremists.

“The Pakistani military has done an outstanding job,” he said.

Late last month, the US Congress approved this bill, which triples aid for Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for the next five years and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law.

But in an effort to address US concerns that Pakistan's military

may support militant groups, the bill stipulates conditions for security aid, among them that Pakistan must show commitment to fighting terrorism.

The bill also provides for an assessment of how effective the civilian government's control is over the military, including in the promotion of top military officials.

Although the bill, named after US lawmakers who authored it, had sought to establish a long-term, multi-pronged relationship with Pakistan, these two clauses failed this purpose by creating a major controversy in Pakistan.

Last week, the Pakistan military took an unprecedented step and issued a press release underlining its concerns.

Initially, the reaction in Pakistan had an adverse impact on the United States as well, but since early this week, the US media has started acknowledging that the language of some of the clauses might have been seen in Pakistan as insulting.

Some US experts also pointed out that the Pakistani military had reasons to interpret the clause that deals with promotions and transfer in the army as interference in its internal affairs.

The uproar in Pakistan caused the foreign minister to cut short his visit to Washington last week and rush to Islamabad to wind up a parliamentary debate on this issue. While in Islamabad, he also attended a high-level meeting chaired by President Asif Ali Zardari. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the head of the ISI attended this meeting.

Soon after the meeting, Islamabad announced that Mr Qureshi was going back to Washington to brief the Americans.

Mr Qureshi, who arrived in the US capital on Tuesday morning, had his first working meeting with US special envoy Richard Holbrooke hours after his arrival.

“I am meeting all of them to give perspective of Pakistan and its parliament,” Mr Qureshi said after “frank and open” discussions with Mr Holbrooke. “I shall explain to them our position.”

“One has to be optimistic,” said the foreign minister when a reporter asked if he believed he would be able to clear all the misunderstandings.

Later, Mr Qureshi had a longer meeting with Senator Kerry at his office. In the afternoon, he was meeting US National Security Adviser James Jones and Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

After the Senate meeting, Mr Qureshi and Senator Kerry told reporters that Congressman Berman will join them for yet another meeting on Wednesday. The two US legislators and the Pakistani foreign minister will work on a joint statement, which will address all issues relating to the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.

“All interpretations and misinterpretations will be addressed,” said Mr Kerry.

“The statement will make it very clear that the bill does not violate our sovereignty or seeks to micro-manage our affairs,” the foreign minister said.

Senator Kerry said that the foreign minister “spoke to us very loudly and clearly” on all the issues concerning the bill.

“We want to set the record straight and clear so that the bill is not misinterpreted or miss-characterised,” the senator said.

The foreign minister's tone was very different from that of his previous briefings on the bill. During last week's visit, Mr Qureshi was keen to felicitate US lawmakers for passing the bill, telling them how grateful the Pakistani people and the government were for their generous offer of $7.5 billion.

But on Tuesday, he was a different man, indicating that the parliamentary debate and the high-level meeting with the Pakistani military officials had forced him to change his views.