The Dawn Media Group and Julian Assange, Chief Executive of Sunshine Press Productions, the publishing arm of WikiLeaks, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the exclusive first use in Pakistan of all the secret US diplomatic cables related to political and other developments in the country.

Dawn Newspaper Editor, Zaffar Abbas, and WikiLeaks' Julian Assange sign the MoU.

The MoU signed in the UK allows the publication and use of these secret cables in Dawn, its website Dawn.com and DawnNews television. Under similar arrangement between the Sunshine Press Productions, daily The Hindu and NDTV will also be publishing these cables simultaneously in India.

These cables have been obtained by WikiLeaks through its own sources and made available to Dawn Media Group. On May 20, 2011, Dawn carried the first set from a huge cache of cables, and will continue to publish them in the following days. Dawn's extensive coverage will include publication of the actual cables as well as specially commissioned stories around them. All cables referenced are available for viewing in their original form on Dawn.com.