ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is scheduled to arrive here on Wednesday afternoon on a three-day official visit for consultations with the top Pakistani leadership primarily to keep the growing bilateral relations on track.

This will be his seventh trip to Pakistan in the past four years. His last visit was in October 2005 when he came here to express solidarity with Pakistan in aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit the country.

President Karzai’s 35-member entourage will comprise ministers of foreign affairs, defence, commerce, parliamentarians and half a dozen provincial governors including those of Kandahar and Kabul.

He will hold formal talks with President Gen Pervez Musharraf later in the day. In the evening President Musharraf will host a banquet in his honour at the Aiwan-i-Sadr.

On Thursday the Afghan President will also meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He will also give a talk at the National Defence College in Islamabad. A number of ministers including foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri will call on him during his stay in the capital.

Mr Karzai’s visit takes place on the heels of a string of border violations from the Afghan side, an issue that will be a key talking point. Also, it coincides with the Tripartite Commission’s meeting in Afghanistan where this issue will also dominate discussions.

On the bilateral front Afghan Transit Trade, economic cooperation, reconstruction, import of electricity from Kazakhstan via Afghanistan and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project will be discussed, officials here said. In the regional context Indo-Pakistan peace process, developments in Iran, Iraq, and Palestine will figure in discussions. The row over the publication of blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) in European newspapers and its backlash in the Muslim world will also be a key issue.