ISI, CIA chiefs to meet in August: drone attacks will be main agenda

The head of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency will hold talks in Washington on August 1-3 with his CIA counterpart, a military statement said, with drone strikes expected to be a major issue.
It is the first time in a year that the chief of the Pakistan military's powerful ISI will make the trip, signalling a thaw in relations after US troops found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011.
Lieutenant General Zaheer-ul-Islam, who was appointed in March, "will visit USA from 1st to 3rd August. This will be a service-to-service bilateral visit," the statement said.
"He will meet his counterpart General David Petraeus, director CIA."
The short statement gave no other details, but a senior Pakistani security official earlier told AFP that the pair would discuss counter-terror cooperation and intelligence sharing.
Islam would also demand an end to US drone attacks against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and again ask for the means for Pakistan to carry out the attacks instead, the security official said.
It had been expected that Islam would visit the US in late July. It was not immediately clear why that trip did not happen.

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