The Afghan embassy in Washington said Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul and other ministers will attend the meeting as scheduled from Feb. 23-25.—Reuters photo

KABUL: A meeting scheduled this month between Pakistani, Afghan and US officials in Washington is in doubt as a rift grows between Islamabad and Washington over an American man locked in a Pakistani jail, accused of murder.

The Obama administration is insisting diplomatic immunity should cover Raymond Davis, the US consular employee who shot dead two Pakistani men last month in what he said was an attempted robbery on a street of Lahore.

The Afghan embassy in Washington said Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul and other ministers would attend the meeting as scheduled from Feb. 23-25, and the US State Department indicated this week that planning continued for the gathering.

But a Pakistani diplomatic source said no decision had been made about whether the meeting would go ahead or whether it would be cancelled.

One Afghan minister also said his plans to travel to the United States for the meeting were now up in the air.

The trilateral meetings have been held periodically in a bid to foster stability in Afghanistan, where around 100,000 US troops are fighting tenacious Taliban militants, and in Pakistan.

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