WASHINGTON: The prime minister`s special assistant for foreign affairs, Tariq Fatemi, is coming to the United States this weekend to meet officials of the Trump transition team.

`Besides meeting members of the transition team, Mr Fatemi will meet officials of the outgoing Obama administration,` said Pakistan`s Ambassador to the United States Jalil Abbas Jilani.

US President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to take the oath on Jan 20 but he has already set up a provisional team, encouraging foreign leaders and officials to visit his headquarters in New York for familiarisation meetings.

Mr Fatemi, who is coming on a two-week official visit, is also expected to meet some members of this team and in Washington, `he will also meet new US lawmakers elected last month,` Mr Jilani told a news briefing at the embassy.

`This is a very important visit as much has happened in Washington since the Nov 8 elections,` Mr Jilani said.

The visit follows a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Mr Trump on Wednesday during which the US leader expressed his desire to continue a productive relationship with Pakistan.

The Trump-Sharif conversation has generated much interest in the US capital where the opposition Democrats and the media are both criticising the president-elect for `talking to foreign leaders... without consulting US of ficials`.

On Thursday afternoon, the White House suggested that the State Department might have briefed Mr Trump before his call to PM Sharif.

But when a journalist asked State Department`s Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner if they had briefed Mr Trump, he said: `Not to my knowledge, no. We had no discussion with President-elect Trump prior to that call.

He said Mr Trump had not consulted the department before calling other foreign leaders either.

At the White House, a journalist asked Press Secretary Josh Earnest if the Obama administration agreed with Mr Trump`s positive assessment of Pakistan and its leader.

`The United States` relationship with Pakistan is one that is quite complicated,` Mr Earnest said and instead of praising Pakistan as `a fantastic country,` as Mr Trump had done, he praised the fantastic US diplomats who work at the State Department and provide the presidents with detailed briefings before talks with foreign leaders.