Khan-Trump meeting has helped reduce trust deficit: Qureshi

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that Imran Khan's first face-to-face talks with Donald Trump has removed the "vacuum" in bilateral ties and allowed the Prime Minister to present Pakistan's point of view to the US President and reduce the trust deficit.

US-Pakistan relations have been rocky ever since Trump assumed charge, hitting a low point last year when he suspended millions of dollars of security assistance to Islamabad due to the country's failure to clamp down on the Taliban and other militant groups operating out of Pakistani soil.

President Trump hosted Prime Minister Khan at the White House on Monday and the two leaders had a frank exchange, Qureshi said, indicating that the "stiffness that once existed in our relationship has been lessened."
He said, "a new beginning, a new chapter is being opened, we should take this positively and hope that things will get better."
"Now that we are making an effort to curb that deficit, we can hope that those programmes will be reinstated."
On the issue of terror financing, Qureshi said, " We have not come here to lie, nor have we come here to make promises that we cannot keep... We as a government will not promise that which we cannot deliver."