ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif departed on Saturday for talks in the United States, with the Afghan peace process and the prickly issue of Washington's drone campaign likely to top the agenda.
Relations between Pakistan and the US, fractious allies in the "war on terror", have been on the mend this year after lurching from crisis to crisis in 2011 and 2012.
Sharif meets President Barack Obama on Wednesday with Washington keen to press the Pakistani premier to help faltering efforts at engineer peace between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban.
Sharif will use the trip to seek help for his country's ailing economy and dysfunctional energy sector.
Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at US think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said that since coming to power in May Sharif had impressed Washington with his willingness to be a partner.
The release of Afghan Taliban prisoners from Pakistani custody, including senior Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar last month, had gone some way to diminish these accusations, Markey said.
He said Obama would likely appreciate any new ideas from Pakistan on how to jump-start the Afghan peace process as the United States and Nato prepare to withdraw combat troops next year.
"If the Pakistanis come armed with some ideas on that front, they may win some points. If there are specific things that they can offer, they can show themselves to be helpful," said Markey, author of the new book "No Exit from Pakistan" on the two nations' relationship.
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