RAWALPINDI: Mr Richard M. Nixon, a former Vice-President of the United States, and President Ayub will discuss bilateral Pakistan-US relations and world problems when they meet at the President’s House tomorrow.

Mr Nixon, who arrived here this evening [April 19] for a 24-hour stay in the capital as part of his “foreign policy fact-finding tour” of 34 countries, said that he would get President Ayub’s appraisal of American foreign policy in general.

Talking to the Pressmen at the Chaklala airport on his arrival here, Mr Nixon said that the situation in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is potentially explosive. Earlier in Lahore, Mr Nixon said that the Kashmir problem was still potentially explosive and its solution must be “responsive to desires of the people of Kashmir”. Mr Nixon told Pindi Pressmen he wished this tremendously populated sub-continent to develop the basis to peaceful relations. He believed that American foreign policy could play a role in that direction.

Replying to a question he said that he had noted with considerable interest Press reports about the stoppage of military aid to Pakistan and would discuss the matter with President Ayub when he calls on him tomorrow.

He said he would get President Ayub’s appraisal of the American foreign policy because he is one of the most knowledgeable men in the world. He said he had known President Ayub for a long time. He had met him in 1953 as Vice-President of the United States, and even after that and found him “frank and candid”.

Mr Nixon, however, made it clear that he was travelling as a private citizen, trying to get round world leaders and get their honest opinion about United States policy.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2017