Pakistan sending envoy to meet Trump team

Pakistan has decided to send an envoy to the US to hold meetings with Donald Trump's transition team, two days after a "productive" telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the president-elect.

Pakistani Prime Minister's special assistant for foreign affairs Tariq Fatemi will visit the US this weekend to meet officials of the Trump transition team. The meeting was confirmed by Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US. "Besides meeting members of the transition team, Fatemi will meet officials of the outgoing Obama administration," said Jilani.

US President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to take the oath on January 20 but he has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Fatemi, who is coming on a two-week official visit, is also expected to meet some members of this team and in Washington, "he will also meet new US lawmakers elected last month," Jilani told a news briefing at the embassy.