Clinton to visit Pakistan in July

Secretary Clinton will be visiting Pakistan in July — presumably early enough in the month to return in time to prepare for daughter Chelsea’s July 31 wedding. She’ll be attending the second session of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue, the first of which was held in the United States in March.

Among the topics of discussion: U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan. Another sensitive point in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship right now: Pakistan’s recent gas deal with Iran, in which energy-starved Pakistan will  import 760 million cubic feet of natural gas daily from Iran  through a new pipeline starting in 2014.The United States is not comfortable with the deal because it could run afoul of sanctions against Iran that the U.S. Congress is finalizing and weaken international efforts to pressure Iran on its nuclear program.

Speaking to the media on June 20, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said his country would follow U.N. sanctions and said today that Pakistan was "not bound to follow" unilateral U.S. sanctions.

(In the photo above, Clinton stands next to the Pakistani flag in Islamabad on Oct. 28, 2009.)