WASHINGTON, April 26: US Special Representative Marc Grossman would meet Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday, said the US State Department while making it clear that the United States considered the Supreme Court’s verdict against the Pakistani leader an internal matter.

Ambassador Grossman held a series of meetings with Pakistani officials in Islamabad on Thursday and will attend a conference of the Afghan core group, which includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States, on Friday.

At the department’s regular briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed that the two sides also discussed Pakistan’s demand for an immediate end to drone strikes in Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

She resisted all efforts to make her comment on the verdict against the PM, saying that since it was Pakistan’s internal matter, it would not be appropriate for her to do so.

“You know with regard to this issue and others, we always say the same thing which is that we do consider this an internal matter and we expect that Pakistan is going to resolve these kinds of issues in a just way, in a trans-parent way and in a way that upholds Pakistani laws and constitution.”

When a reporter argued that the verdict could disrupt US-Pakistan talks and frustrate US efforts to rebuild its ties with Pakistan, Ms Nuland said: “I’m not going to speculate on the impact of an internal matter on a foreign policy matter, other than to say that we did have productive talks today and we think it’s important that we get back to our re-engagement.”

And then she added: “By the way, Ambassador Grossman will meet with Prime Minister Gilani tomorrow.”

Asked if the State Department was concerned about the possible consequences of the verdict, the US official said: “We want to see it settled and we want to see it settled transparently.”

Asked for an update on Ambassador Grossman’s engagements in Islamabad, the State Department official noted that he and his inter-agency team had “productive meetings” with Pakistani officials on Thursday.

The two sides discussed a “full range of issues” linked to Pakistan’s parliamentary review of its ties with the United States, she said.

“In particular, Ambassador Grossman laid out that we want to work with Pakistan to reopen the ground lines of communication,” said the US official while underlining the main item on the US agenda.

Referring to the demands raised in the parliamentary review, she said Ambassador Grossman told Pakistani officials that: “We want to settle the outstanding claims with regard to coalition support funds. We want to get back to the business of pursuing our shared counterterrorism objectives together. We want to increase market access for Pakistani companies in the US, US companies in Pakistan and work on economic opportunities going both ways.”

The two sides also held preparatory discussions for the US-Afghanistan-Pakistan core group meetings that will happen on Friday, she said.

When a reporter asked if Pakistan’s main demand — an immediate halt to US drones strikes in Fata — was also discussed, Ms Nuland said: “Without getting into discussions of intelligence matters, the entire range of issues with regard to the counter-terrorism challenge that we want to work on together was discussed.”

“So no subject was omitted?” the report asked. “Correct,” she replied.

Asked if there’s been any progress in narrowing the gaps on any or all of these, the US official said: “This was the first day of our team to team effort to re-engage in the post parliamentary review time period. So you know this is going to be a process. This is going to take some time and this was really only day one.”