ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson will be meeting former prime minister and PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif on Monday, it is learnt. Ambassador Patterson is scheduled to call on Mr Sharif at his Model Town residence in Lahore during the day.

This will be their first meeting since Mr Sharif’s dramatic return to Pakistan on November 25 after having been unceremoniously deported to Saudi Arabia in September when he staged a comeback from an almost seven-year exile.

The meeting acquires special significance given the rejection of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif’s nomination papers by the Returning Officer in Lahore and after the party’s announcement to boycott the January 8 elections.

The US ambassador touched base with the PML-N leadership soon after the arrival of the Sharif brothers in Lahore. She has already met the party’s acting head Mr Javed Hashmi.

Mr Nawaz Sharif, the twice elected prime minister of Pakistan, also tried to communicate his position on key issues of concern to the US, particularly war on terror, through an article in The Washington Post late last month.