Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday hosted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for talks at the White House, a meeting seen as a sign of improving relations between Washington and Islamabad after years of strained ties.
The visit, Sharif’s first to the White House as prime minister, comes just days after he and Trump held an informal exchange on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. Sharif also participated in Trump’s multilateral session with leaders from eight Islamic-Arab countries, including Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, on strategies to end the war in Gaza.
Speaking with reporters ahead of the meeting, Trump praised both Sharif and Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, calling them “great leaders.” “We have a great leader coming, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Field Marshal. Field Marshal is a very great guy, and so is the Prime Minister, both,” Trump said outside the Oval Office.
U.S.–Pakistan relations had been fraught in recent years, but Islamabad has credited Trump for what it calls his “decisive intervention” during the latest military standoff with India. Trump has repeatedly claimed to have brokered a ceasefire between the nuclear-armed rivals, a claim firmly denied by New Delhi.
