ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: Pakistan on Monday said it would not accommodate former Afghan Mujahideen leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar in the country.

Foreign Office Spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan stated this at a press briefing following reports that the Iranian government had closed down the offices of Mr Hekmatyar.

Asked whether the Pakistan-US defence ties had also assumed the old level with the resumption of friendly relations and lifting of sanctions by Washington, the spokesman said: “As you know the relations between the two countries have got back again to the same old level that we always enjoyed with the United States. There were some misperceptions which have been removed and the (present) relations are very good and as a consequence of that the relations in defence field are also going back to what they used to be”.

Asked why Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar had not been included in the presidential team of ministers accompanying Gen Pervez Musharraf to White House, the spokesman said that Mr Sattar had been invited by the Turkish government to an important ministerial dialogue of 40 countries on Feb 11-12, which he had already accepted. Mr Sattar had left for Ankara in the morning, he added.

The scheduled meeting in Turkey, he said, was being held between the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the European Union (EU), and the theme for the meeting was “civilization and harmony, apolitical perspective”.

The spokesman described as baseless the reports suggesting that Kabul believed the vanquished Taliban leadership was regrouping in Pakistan and added that it had also been denied by an Afghan government minister.

The spokesman said he would not offer any comment on a possibility of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto meeting President Musharraf in the US except to point out that according to a report she had returned to Dubai from her American visit.