NEW YORK, Nov 9: Amid tightest security ever given to a head of state President Pervez Musharraf arrived in New York on Friday afternoon from London to attend the special high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Besides giving a most crucial speech of his life at the United Nations, on Saturday, Gen Musharraf would be feted by president of the United States at a special dinner to express US appreciation of Pakistan’s help in the US war on terrorism.

Mr Bush is expected to invite Pakistani president to visit Washington at a later date. Diplomats here speculate that the visit could take place within weeks.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Maleeha Lodhi and the UN Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad, and the UN protocol officials welcomed Gen Musharraf. He was accompanied by Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Gen Musharraf, who left Pakistan three days ago, made stopovers at Tehran, Istanbul before flying to Paris to meet French President Jacque Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.

New York’s John Kennedy airport where Gen Musharraf arrived and the Roosevelt

Hotel where he is staying look-ed like virtual fortress as hundreds of secret service and FBI agents checked peoples IDs as they entered the areas cordoned off by the police barricades.

Once the most shunned leader in the western world, President Gen Pervez Musharraf would receive a red carpet treatment by the world leaders attending the special session of the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday.

His standing in the world has skyrocketed since the attacks in New York and Washington. The Americans, Europeans, Japanese and others had imposed tough economic sanctions after he came to power in a coup against an elected government in October 1999.

President Musharraf was not welcomed in the company of his fellow international leaders. When the former US President Bill Clinton came to Islamabad, US-Pakistan relations were so cold that Mr Clinton refused to allow pictures or TV footage showing him meeting Pervez Musharraf.

Now few restrictions remain on trade and investment in Pakistan and the world leaders are falling over each other to meet him including Britain’s’ Tony Blair, Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld among others. In New York, the US President, George W. Bush, will hold an exclusive dinner for him.

As one diplomat here put it: “If such diplomatic successes are an indication of stability, then this country has little to fear.”

The stakes for Gen Musharraf are high and much depends on the US action in Afghanistan and how long will the campaign last and apprehensions about India’s hostile designs on Pakistan’s border.