Pasha met US special Af-Pak envoy: State Dept

Washington: US Special Representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan Marc Grossman met Pakistan's ISI chief Lt-Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was in the US to defuse mounting tensions between the two sides over a slew of incidents, including suspension of $ 800 million in military aid to Islamabad.

"I can confirm the meeting took place, but I don't have readout of the meeting," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters at his daily news conference.

Pasha made a short visit to Washington, arriving on Wednesday and leaving Thursday, to meet with Acting CIA chief Michael Morell and other top officials.

"You can imagine that they talked about our relationship going forward, both the challenges that we're facing but also the cooperation that remains and the importance of that cooperation in terms of counter-terrorism assistance but also in terms of civilian assistance," he said.

The meeting with was long scheduled, Toner said.

Grossman delivered a message that while there is this slowdown in security assistance to Pakistan, its civilian assistance does remain flowing.

"And it's very important to building the kind of institutions that we believe are both in our long-term national security interest as well as Pakistan's," said the State Department spokesman.

"Any conversation we're having with Pakistan right now is in the context of the fact that, while our military assistance, security assistance, has slowed down, our civilian assistance does remain intact. So I'm sure that they talked about that, talked about ways to improve that assistance and make sure that it's getting to the right kinds of programs," Toner said referring to the meeting.

Noting that the meetings went 'very well', officials from both sides said that they agreed to implement on a number of confidence building measures, as the relationship between the two spy agency has had deteriorated since the Raymond

David episode, a US diplomat who was arrested on murder charges early this year.

Pasha was the top Pakistan official to visit US after the killing of al Qaeda Osama bin Laden at his hideout in garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2.