ISLAMABAD, June 20: Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri will visit Thailand from Saturday to Monday for talks with Thai leaders and East Asian counterparts, an official statement announced.

He will attend a meeting of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) in the northern city of Chiang Mai where he plans to hold sideline talks with counterparts from China, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Laos and Cambodia, a foreign ministry statement said on Friday.

Foreign ministers of 10 Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries as well as Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Qatar and South Korea are attending the ACD moot.

His meetings take on extra importance following Asean’s announcement this week that it would push for Pakistan to join the Asean Regional Forum, the Asia Pacific region’s top security grouping.

Efforts to welcome Pakistan into the group this week were stymied by India, despite an official thawing of relations between the neighbours.

Kasuri will “explore ways of strengthening Pakistan’s economic and commercial ties with these countries,” the statement said.—AFP