ISLAMABAD, Sept 17: US President Barack Obama will not meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for a bilateral meeting when the latter visits New York next week for the UN General Assembly session.

Both Pakistani and American diplomats confirmed that the meeting was highly unlikely.

Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz had told the parliament late last month that Prime Minister Sharif was expecting to meet Mr Obama on the margins of the UNGA session.

A US diplomat said that President Obama’s busy schedule did not allow for a meeting with Mr Sharif who would be in New York for a week from Sept 22 to 29.

The two men would get a chance to shake hands on Sept 24 at a dinner hosted by Mr Obama for visiting world leaders.

Mr Sharif will have to wait for his one-to-one meeting with Mr Obama till the last week of October or early November, when he visits Washington for his first official visit to the US since his election as the prime minister.

Secretary of State John Kerry had delivered an invitation to Mr Sharif to visit Washington when he came to Islamabad on August 1.

Pakistan and United States are set to resume their Strategic Dialogue in coming months.

The two countries have been making intense efforts to put their relationship back on an even keel, but mutual mistrust and differences over counter-terrorism persist.

Prime Minister Sharif intends to raise the issue of US drone attacks in his speech at the UN on Sept 26. The country’s political leadership that assembled on Sept 9 at an all-party conference for discussing the national security strategy had urged the government to explore the possibility of taking up the drone issue at the UN.

Continued drone attacks in tribal areas are a major sore point in relations. Pakistan views the drone attacks as a violation of its sovereignty and has expressed fears that the matter could affect bilateral ties.

The US has significantly reduced the number of attacks after President Obama revised the drone policy this year.