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Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi hinted before a visit to Washington this week to a possible compromise in the case of a jailed doctor after helping the United States find and kill Osama Bin Laden .
The Pakistani authorities refuted all US efforts to secure the release of Shakeel Afridi, who was sentenced to long prison terms for helping American commandos identify the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed in 2011.
The raid took place on Pakistani soil without the government's knowledge, which deeply embarrassed the national authorities. Since then, the imprisonment of Afridi has remained a major irritant in US-Pakistan relations.
But in an interview with the Fox News cable network on Sunday, Qureshi said the newly elected government of Prime Minister Imran Khan could be more flexible on the issue.
"The openings are still there," Qureshi said. Afridi "is seen in Pakistan in a different context, he is considered a traitor in Pakistan, while the United States saw him as a friend, so we will have to settle disputes on this issue."
Despite the apparent opening, Qureshi, who is due to meet Tuesday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, claimed that the case had been handled appropriately in the Pakistani legal system.
"We have a legal system and Afridi has followed this process," he said. "He had the opportunity to plead his case, he has been convicted and sentenced, and is serving his sentence."
Afridi conducted a false vaccination campaign against hepatitis B to collect genetic samples in order to gain access to the complex where bin Laden was housed and to confirm his presence and that of his family. A few days after the raid, Afridi was arrested and tried for treating and financing terrorists in his native tribal district on the Afghan border.
US officials have praised Afridi for his role in helping Washington to do justice to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The Americans maintain that the charges against Afridi were intended to punish him for his role in the raid, in which bin Laden was killed by a US Navy team.
Analysts say to the VOA urdu service that progress in the Afridi case could help improve Pakistan-US. reports. Najam Rafique, director of the US Studies Department at the Institute of Strategic Studies based in Islamabad, said Monday that the case had long created tensions between the two countries, whose efforts counterterrorism had been supplemented by mutual mistrust.
"The statement made by the Pakistani Foreign Minister to the United States could be seen in the context of Pakistan's desire to improve its bilateral relations with the United States," he said. . "Pakistan would therefore do its best to bring some relief to the United States on certain issues so that bilateral relations can progress in a positive way."
Rafique added that the timing of the remark before this week's meeting with Pompeo suggested that the new government of Islamabad was ready to discuss with all the US issues. Qureshi was already in the United States on the occasion of the annual meeting of the United States General Assembly in New York.
Afridi was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison, but a court of appeal brought him back to 23 years after a hearing. The doctor was transferred from the northwestern city of Peshawar to a prison in Rawalpindi City, in the garrison, near Islamabad, shortly before May 2, day of the raid against bin Laden.
Ayaz Gul contributed to this article, which originated in the Urdu VOA service.
