President Donald Trump praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the head of the country’s army Asim Munir as great guys ahead of a White House meeting to strengthen ties amid cooling relations with India — Islamabad’s main rival .

“The Pakistan-US partnership would be further strengthened to the mutual benefit of both countries,” according to a statement by the Prime Minister Sharif’s office on Friday. The meeting was the latest in a series of high-level US engagements with Pakistan, as Trump presses India to scale back ties with Moscow and uses tariffs to pressure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

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Munir is widely seen as the nation’s most powerful

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