ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr. Mohammad Faisal said on Thursday relations between Pakistan and the United States had “returned to normal” following Prime Minister Imran Khan’s maiden visit to Washington and meetings with President Donald Trump and other US leaders. 

Khan returned home from Washington on Thursday after a visit seen by supporters as a major diplomatic win. Khan’s reassurance that Pakistan would help reach a peace deal with the Taliban to allow US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan went a long way toward rebuilding Pakistan’s image in Washington after years of US mistrust. 

“Relations between Pakistan and the US have been reestablished,” Faisal said at a weekly press briefing hours after the premier’s return from the US. “Even the American [government] did not use ‘do more’,” he said, referring to the refrain of past US leaders that Pakistan was not doing enough to tackle militancy. 

Faisal also confirmed that Trump had accepted Khan’s invitation to Pakistan but gave no date for the visit. 

Responding to a question about Khan’s remarks during a US television interview that Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI, provided the US with the lead that helped them find and kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, the foreign office spokesman said: “Pakistan had provided initial information about Osama bin Laden to the US,” adding that “I will neither confirm nor deny if the ISI provided any assistance to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in [finding] Osama bin Laden.”

Pakistan has until now officially denied having any knowledge of the terror chief until he was shot dead in a night time raid by US special forces on May 2, 2011, an incident that was a major national embarrassment and caused ties between Pakistan and the US to plummet.

Referring to President Trump’s offer to act as a mediator between Pakistan and India to help solve the Kashmir dispute, Dr. Faisal said India was “not ready to talk.”

Trump told reporters on Monday that Modi had asked him during a meeting in Japan last month if he would like to be a mediator on Kashmir. The territory is at the heart of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan.

“The only way forward is to [solve issues] through talks,” Faisal said. “I wish India would understand this; maybe it will if Trump mediates.”

Foreign Minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, who was part of the Indian delegation at the G20 meeting where Trump and Modi met, has since said Modi did not seek any help from Trump over Kashmir.

“The US president made certain remarks to the effect he was ready to mediate if requested by India and Pakistan,” Jaishankar told parliament last week. “I categorically assure the house that no such request has been made by the prime minister, I repeat, no such request was made.”