Pakistan said on Saturday that President Pervez Musharraf has no plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly summit in New York later this month.
Amid strong protests from Islamic parties over Pakistan's initiation of high-level talks with Israel, Foreign Office spokesman Naeem Khan said meeting with Sharon was not on Musharraf's schedule although he would address a conference organised by the American Jewish Congress.
Israeli media reported on Friday that plans were afoot for a Musharraf-Sharon summit but said it will be finalised after taking into account the reaction within Pakistan and the Arab world to the meeting between Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom and his Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Kasuri.
Pakistan, meanwhile, would send a diplomatic delegation to Palestine to meet Palestinian leaders and visit Palestinian territory including Gaza, Khan was quoted as saying by local television channels.
He said Pakistan was firm in its stance of non-recognition of Israel and thus, there is no chance of establishment of trade links with that country.
In the first high-level contact, Kasuri held talks with Shalom in Turkey on Thursday and asserted that Islamabad has decided to 'engage' with Israel after the Jewish state's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
He, however, said that "the meeting does not mean recognition...that stage will come following progress toward the solution of the Palestinian problem."
