US President George W. Bush engineered an informal encounter with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, and renewed US praise for Islamabad’s support in the US anti-terror campaign. Bush dropped by on a meeting between Kasuri and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice at the White House yesterday, rounding off a visit to Washington in which the minister met every senior US official. Washington lists LeT as foreign terrorist body Washington: Secretary of State Colin Powell designated Pakistani Islamic radical group Lashkar-e-Toiba as a foreign terrorist organisation on Friday, accusing it of maintaining close ties with the Al-Qaeda. Powell also accused the group of numerous bus and church bombings. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Pakistani Islamic group was involved in the January 2002 kidnapping and killing in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The designation brings the number of foreign organisations on the US terrorism list to 36 .—AP ‘‘President George W. Bush was kind enough to also join us in the meeting for some time,’’ Kasuri said. ‘‘The President acknowledged the contribution of Pakistan to war against terrorism.’’ Bush spent 15 minutes with Kasuri, a senior administration official said. ‘‘Drop-by’’ meetings are used by US Presidents to hold informal encounters with visiting dignitaries, even though protocol does not dictate official talks with the US Commander-in-Chief.Kasuri said he raised the issue with Bush of new US anti-terror rules which require males over 16 years of age from more than 20 mainly Muslim states, residing in the US, to register with immigration authorities. He has spent much of his visit demanding an opt-out for Pakistanis from the scheme, by virtue of their country’s strong support for the US anti-terror drive in Afghanistan.
