ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is arriving here on Monday on a three-day visit to discuss ways for increasing counter-terrorism cooperation and improving relations between the two countries.

“Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will visit Pakistan from February 16 to 18, 2009,” an announcement issued by the Foreign Office said on Saturday.

It will be the first high-level visit from Australia after Prime Minister John Howard visited Pakistan in 2005.

Mr Smith will call on President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Interior Adviser Rehman Malik and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Sources said that focus of talks between Mr Smith and his interlocutors in Islamabad would be on terrorism, Afghanistan and the security of Australian troops there.

Pakistan and Australia during a meeting between their foreign ministers in June last year in Paris had agreed to boost counter-terrorism cooperation.

The increased counter-terrorism cooperation, diplomatic sources said, would include training and assistance of security personnel and development of an extradition treaty.

Australia is keen to assist Pakistan in controlling illegal cross-border movement of militants along the 2,400km porous border with Afghanistan. Australia has some 1,100 troops in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.