Holbrooke's Pak visit cancelled

Islamabad, June 8(ANI): The U.S. Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has called off his June 9 visit to Pakistan.

According to reports, the decision was taken after Holbrooke was informed that neither Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari nor Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi would be in Islamabad on the day due to prior commitments.

"Holbrooke's visit on Wednesday has been cancelled," The Dawn quoted a senior official at the Pakistan Foreign Office, as saying.

Holbrooke planned to visit Islamabad for discussions on the Pak-US official-level talks, the recently concluded India-US strategic dialogue, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to China and the Afghan peace jirga.

Zardari would be in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit and Qureshi in Istanbul for the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit.

This would have been Holbrooke's eighth visit to Pakistan since assuming office early last year, and third this year.

Earlier, he had to cancel his visit to India and Turkmenistan because of similar problems. (ANI)