Pakistan's prime minister said Thursday that top officials currently visiting Washington would raise the issue of a female Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill US servicemen. A US jury last month found Aafia Siddiqui, 37, a mother and neuroscientist trained at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, guilty on all charges and she could face life in prison when sentenced on May 6. “I myself raised the issues about Doctor Aafia Siddiqui with various Congress delegations visiting Pakistan,” Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told reporters in Islamabad. “It is not possible that our delegation will not raise these issues during the talks,” he said in remarks broadcast on local television. Gilani said, however, that Pakistan's top priority in this week's talks chaired by Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be Pakistan's crippling energy crisis. Market access to Pakistan The Obama administration promised Thursday to work for greater US market access for Pakistani goods and said it would push Congress to take up stalled legislation that would offer some trade advantages. But any arrangement would fall far short of a free-trade agreement that Pakistan wants. After two days of talks aimed at improving often caustic ties between the two countries, a joint statement promised to look into US market access, long a source of friction. “The United States committed to work towards enhanced market access for Pakistani products as well as towards the early finalization of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones legislation,” said the statement.
