Washington: A scheduled high-level meeting of U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials this month has been postponedMedia reports said that the meeting was cancelled due to Davis issue who killed two Pakistani youths in Lahore
The State Department said on Saturday amid a deepening diplomatic rift over a U.S. man locked in a Pakistani jail accused of murder.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the decision to scrap the Feb. 23-24 meeting had been taken “in light of political changes in Pakistan and after discussions with Afghan and Pakistani officials in Washington.”
“We remain committed to a robust engagement between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States as we share many issues of mutual concern and benefit from being at the same table,” Crowley said in a statement, adding that the United States hoped to reschedule the meeting “at the earliest opportunity.”
Tensions between Islamabad and Washington have been rising over the case of Raymond Davis, a U.S. consular employee who shot dead two Pakistani men last month in what he said was an attempted robbery.
The Obama administration insists diplomatic immunity should apply to Davis, and the case has become a focus for anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, which the United States counts as an important, if unreliable, ally in its war against militants that launch attacks against its soldiers in Afghanistan.
The trilateral meetings have been held periodically in a bid to foster stability in Afghanistan, where around 100,000 U.S. troops are fighting tenacious Taliban militants, and in Pakistan, where a fragile government battles an insurgency of its own.
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