"The visit dates are being worked out and we expect the visit to take place around the third week of January," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told a weekly briefing here. She gave no further details.

The 81-year US statesman was appointed last month by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as special envoy for the October 8 disaster, which killed about 73,000 people in Pakistan and 1,300 in India.

The United Nations has launched an aid appeal for around 550 million dollars, while Pakistan has received aid pledges of more than six billion dollars, of which two billion dollars is in the form of grants.

Bush joined forces with another former US president, Bill Clinton, to raise funds after Hurricane Katrina flooded and destroyed large parts of the southern US city of New Orleans,

Clinton is serving as UN special envoy for tsunami recovery in the wake of the December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that killed around 220,000 people and left millions homeless.

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