Press Release

ISLAMABAD President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani jointly chaired a meeting in the Presidency today to review the progress on the preparatory work for the Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting scheduled to be held in Tokyo on April 17 in which the President will represent Pakistan ..

Those who participated in the meeting besides the President and the Prime Minister included Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Advisor Finance Shaukat Tarin, Secretary General Salman Farooqi, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Spokesperson Farhatullah Babar .

The meeting reviewed proposals developed by Pakistan in areas of internal security, infrastructure development and poverty alleviation, which will be brought to the attention of international community. The President emphasized that in order to make the war against militancy a success it was necessary to comprehensively address the security and development issues of Pakhtoonkhwa and Balochistan provinces in the proposed package. He said that Pakhtoonkhwah province bore the brunt of the war on terror and its developmental and security needs must be seriously addressed. He expressed the hope that the forthcoming meeting of Friends of Pakistan will view positively Pakistan’s requirements to successfully overcome the challenges posed by militancy.

The countries and international bodies included in the Friends of Pakistan group are the US, UK, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, EU, EC and UN.

The Friends of Democratic Pakistan provides a forum to friendly countries to build strategic partnership with Pakistan to foster peace and stability in the region, promote economic stability and address energy needs.