Former United States ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter on Sunday said President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Imran Khan "may find some sort of common ground" if and when a meeting is held between the two leaders.
Addressing an event organised by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, the former envoy said Trump and Khan are in power because they both have "very good political sense".
"They have the fingertip feeling, as we say, they're very clever with people," he said while speaking at the event, 'Brunch & Conversation with Ambassador Cameron Munter', held at Karachi's Movenpick Hotel.
Munter said there was a possibility that if the two leaders meet, they might find some common ground that could help improve their bilateral relationship."Not the kind that typical analytical diplomats find, but they may find that there is common ground in some way," he added.
On January 2, President Trump had expressed his desire to meet Prime Minister Khan for talks on US-led efforts to jump-start the Afghan peace process. “I look forward to meeting the folks from the new leadership in Pakistan [and] we will be doing that in not-too-distant future,” he had said.
Following this, the Foreign Office had welcomed Trump’s remarks on ties with Pakistan and said the government was keenly waiting for the engagement at the highest level.
“We look forward to positive engagement with the US at the leadership level,” FO spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal had said during a weekly media briefing.
During the event today, Munter expressed a desire for better relations between Washington and Islamabad, DawnNewsTV reported.
The former US envoy said that at a tactical level there was still a sense that the kind of ties the United States has with the Pakistani military are "valuable and important, if for no other reason then that there is still a residual [American] force in Afghanistan".
He said it was the "competence" of the Pakistan Army that made them a "good partner" for Washington, and cited the example of the 2010 floods in Pakistan. During the catastrophic floods, he said he had opted not to call the PPP government to help the affected people, and instead approached the Pakistani military.