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ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday reiterated Pakistan’s desire to have better relations with the world, including the United States. However, the decision to restore the Nato supply line would only be taken by the Parliament, she added.
Speaking at the Foreign Affairs Academy in Islamabad, the foreign minister said that the Parliament was in the process of reviewing Pak-US relations.
In reply to a question, Khar said that a stable and peaceful Afghanistan was in Pakistan’s interest. "We would have to give Afghanistan the respect that we desire for ourselves," she said.
A report by the BBC on Thursday claimed that some Pakistani officials — involved in back-door diplomacy between the US and Pakistan after the deterioration of relations after the Salala checkpost attacks on Nov 26, 2011 — are hopeful the Americans will officially apologise soon.
According to the report, a senior military official claims that the Pakistani report on the Salala incident has helped convince American policy-makers to a great degree that the demand for a formal apology by the US is not unjustified.
An official in the Pakistani embassy in the US has also confirmed that the two-month diplomatic process aimed at mending ties between the two countries has finally concluded, adds the report.
The official, wishing not to be named, said that the two-month process of back-door diplomacy included not only the Pakistani foreign minister, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, and their US counterparts, but also senior military officials from both sides.
