Pakistani PM, US Rumsfeld meet
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-01-24 09:05

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon amid strains over a US air strike in Pakistan that killed 18 people in Pakistan.

The Pentagon provided no details on the substance of the talks, but since his arrival in the United States over the weekend, Aziz has reaffirmed Pakistan's commitment to the fight against terrorism.

"We discussed a great deal about our relationship, which is an important relationship to both our countries," Rumsfeld said after the meeting.

"We have a great many things that we do together, and we have had good success in a number of things we do together, and we wish Pakistan well," he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz speaks at a luncheon at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington January 23, 2006.[Reuters]

Aziz is scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush and other US leaders during his visit.

Pakistan has protested a CIA air strike earlier this month that killed 18 people in the village of Damadola in a tribal area near Afghanistan.

The air strike was reportedly aimed at killing al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at a gathering of senior al-Qaeda operatives in the village, according to Pakistani officials.

They said four or five militants were killed in the attack, but Zawahiri was believed not to have been there.

But Aziz said Sunday there was no evidence of an Al-Qaeda presence in the village and denied that his government had backed the strike.

"We have not found one body, or one shred of evidence that these people were there," he told CNN.