Pakistan's new envoy to the US Jalil Abbas Jilani has assumed charge in Washington and said he would try to strengthen bilateral ties.
Jilani, a former Foreign Secretary, is the first career diplomat to head the mission in the US since Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who left in 2004 to represent the UN in Iraq.
He said he would try to "further strengthen the gradually improving Pakistan-US ties", Geo News reported today.
Jilani is expected to play a key role in steering bilateral ties ahead of the pull-out of foreign troops from war-ravaged Afghanistan.
He reached Washington almost eight months after the previous envoy, Sherry Rehman, quit and returned home when her Pakistan People's Party lost the general election in May.
US-Pakistan ties have been under strain since May 2011, when Navy SEALs swooped down on a compound in Abbottabad and killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
The killing of two Pakistani men by CIA contractor Raymond Davis and a US air raid that killed 28 Pakistani soldiers further strained relations.
The relationship will enter a critical phase in 2014 when the US withdraws most of its combat troops from Afghanistan.
Jilani has served as diplomat at the Pakistan embassy in Washington from 1995 to 1999. He has also served as Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi and ambassador to European Union and Australia.
