In this photo, made available by the Press Department of Presidential Palace, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, right, speaks with US Senator John Kerry at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. – AP Photo

KABUL: Influential US Senator John Kerry met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul late Saturday, the president's office said, ahead of Kerry's visit to Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

“They discussed Afghanistan, the regional situation... and also developments following the death of Osama bin Laden,” Karzai's office said in a statement on Sunday.

The White House has said it endorses the trip by Kerry to Pakistan amid badly strained ties over the killing of the al-Qaeda chief in Abbottabad, just 40 miles (65 kilometres) from Islamabad, on May 2.

Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, will be the most senior US official to visit Islamabad since elite US troops killed bin Laden.

The covert raid has plunged Pakistani politics into crisis with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing demands to resign.

Calls in America for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan have increased since the killing of bin Laden.