No confirmation from White House about Imran Khan’s visit: State Department

WASHINGTON: The State Department has clarified that the White House has not yet confirmed about Prime Minister Imran Khan’s meeting with Donald Trump.

When asked about Imran Khan’s visit to the US, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said “To my knowledge, that has actually not been confirmed by the White House.”

“I know that I have read the same reports that you have, but I would reach out to the White House to confirm or not confirm that visit, but that’s – we don’t have anything to announce here from the State Department.”

According to Pakistani officials, Imran Khan is scheduled to meet Donald Trump during his visit to the US this month.

Briefing media about a meeting of the federal cabinet, Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood said Prime Minister Khan is visiting the USA this month on invitation of President Trump.

“It has been decided that Prime Minister will stay at the residence of Pakistani ambassador to the US to save costs.”

He said every effort will be made to minimize expenditures during this visit.

This came a day after Russia refuted reports that Imran Khan was invited to attend the Eastern Economic Forum.

The clarification by the Russian Foreign Ministry came following reports in Pakistan media that an invite was extended by Russian President Vladimir Putin to PM Khan during the Shanghai cooperation organization summit in Bishkek.

Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement said,”We drew attention to the publications in a number of South Asian media that the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Imran Khan was invited to the events of the Eastern Economic Forum (WEF-5) in Vladivostok (September 4-6, this year) as the guest of honour. We would like to give some explanations in this regard…”

“We expect that the President of Mongolia H Battulga, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of Malaysia M Mohammad and the Prime Minister of Japan S Abe will arrive in Vladivostok.”