WASHINGTON, Jan 7: The United States and Pakistan engage in high-level diplomacy next week when US Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Islamabad and President Asif Ali Zardari flies to Washington after the meeting for more consultations.

Mr Biden is expected in the Pakistani capital before Jan 12, when President Zardari leaves Islamabad for a two-day visit to Washington, official sources told Dawn.

US President Barack Obama is also expected to visit Islamabad later this year as one of his advisers on the Pak-Afghan region, Bruce Riedel, predicted that 2011 will be Mr Obama's “Pakistan year”. The Washington Post

In a related development, reminded the Obama administration that in the wake of the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, the West had “little choice other than to support and strengthen” the Zardari government.

President Zardari is apparently coming to attend the last rites for Richard Holbrooke, the former US Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan who died last month. But he is also scheduled to have an official meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Dawn

Officials who spoke with have indicated that talks were likely to focus on the current political and economic situation in the country.

During the last 10 days, Mr Obama and his two senior aides -- Secretary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates -- have publicly expressed concern over the current situation. Post

An editorial in the said that while it was easy to “blame Pakistan's deepening crisis on its feckless civilian government”, Mr Taseer's murder was a reminder that the country was engaged in a fateful civil war and that the current government was the most reliable liberal force.

The newspaper, however, noted that Mr Zardari and his PPP had been ineffectual in managing the economy, slow in responding to disasters like floods and unable to attack Taliban sanctuaries as the US had been seeking for years.

Even though the Zardari government needs to implement economic reforms, sponsor development in areas where extremism breeds, and push the army to go after the Taliban, “for now, the priority should be its survival”, the editorial said.

The Post noted that Mr Holbrooke also recognised this truth.

Not long before his death, the envoy argued that although the US-Pakistan relationship was one of the most complex and difficult he had known in his long career, the United States had no choice but to keep working at it, said the editorial.