ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: President Pervez Musharraf’s proposed visit to Russia at President Vladimir Putin’s invitation next month would be independent of Moscow’s relations with New Delhi, and would seek to avail “tremendous potential of expansion in bilateral relations” in a number of sectors.

Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan told his weekly news briefing on Monday that India had been making efforts for many decades to build upon its relationship with Russia but Pakistan “was not in a zero-sum game” in developing Islamabad-Moscow ties which, he said, would be independent of Delhi-Moscow relations.

President Musharraf’s visit, the spokesman said, would be very important because he would seek to give more meaning and depth to bilateral relations in his discussions with President Putin. The president would discuss besides bilateral issues, important regional and international matters of mutual interest, he pointed out.

In reply to a question, the spokesman said that no shift in Pakistan’s foreign policy was envisaged while expatiating on Islamabad’s relations with Washington and said that they, as ever, aimed to be long lasting as could be seen in the history of the country’s foreign policy.

The spokesman declared that there had been no shift in the foreign policy for the “simple reason that the Pakistan government has always relied on itself and its people for its defence”.

He stated that Pakistan had been subject to aggression before and “I do not think that it (Pakistan) ran around soliciting others’ support”.

The spokesman corrected reports which spoke of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali visiting later this month some Gulf states where he would offer Pakistan’s good offices to act as mediator in resolving the Iraq crisis. The spokesman said the prime minister’s visit was in continuation of Pakistan’s desire to consolidate and expand relations with the Muslim states of the Middle East. However, he added, the Iraqi situation was going to be subject of the PM’s discussions with his counterparts.

He also clarified that Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri’s current visit to the United States was not focused on the immigration problems confronting Pakistanis there. Although, he said, Pakistan would like to be taken off the list of some 30 countries placed by Washington to stricter immigration laws enforced recently.

The spokesman said that Pakistan and the US had been holding defence talks besides discussing bilateral relations.

Asked whether the issue of a criminal charge of battering by an American woman against Munir Akram, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, had “happily ended”, the spokesman said that the matter was under legal examination and that he would come back to media when it was decided.