Even with U.S.-Pakistani relations badly frayed over the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s new government wants to seize an opportunity for a political solution of that war, while a “new convergence” of thinking among the Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. governments is creating much of that opportunity,  Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said.

Qureshi said this at the U.S Institute of Peace, USIP, in his first visit to the United States under the two-month-old government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

According to USIP report, speaking a day after meeting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. national security advisor, John Bolton, those meetings were “useful, engaging and forward-looking,” Queshi told an overflow audience of diplomats, policy specialists, journalists and others. He spoke and answered questions from listeners for nearly an hour and a half, stressing his intent “to reconnect and to rebuild an important (U.S.-Pakistani) relationship.”

“I was expecting a very hawkish approach, a very, sort of ‘dressing down’ approach by U.S. officials. That, pleasantly, did not take place. I felt that Secretary Pompeo was ready to listen”.

Qureshi said that if he is able to return to Pakistan “with this impression that I’ve been able to halt the slide, to me, that will be an achievement.”

Qureshi acknowledged that in Pakistan’s ties with the United States, “the last two years in particular were difficult”. The U.S. government last month announced a suspension of $300 million in aid to Pakistan over what it says is Pakistan’s failure to halt activities of terrorist groups in its territory; notably factions of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement. At the same time, Pompeo offered “the opportunity to reset” the relationship.

In Pakistan, which has been ruled for decades by its military, the armed forces play a leading role in foreign and security policies even under civilian administrations. The military traditionally has worked to maintain influence in Afghanistan in part to avoid a strategic encirclement by its more powerful rival, India. The United States for years has said that Pakistan’s main military intelligence agency supports the Haqqani faction of the Taliban including in the faction’s attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Now, Pakistan is prepared to “use all its influence” to bring the Afghan Taliban to peace talks, Qureshi said. But he cautioned that “our influence over the Taliban is diminished.

U.S Institute of Peace