-
Tips for becoming a good boxer - November 6, 2020
-
7 expert tips for making your hens night a memorable one - November 6, 2020
-
5 reasons to host your Christmas party on a cruise boat - November 6, 2020
-
What to do when you’re charged with a crime - November 6, 2020
-
Should you get one or multiple dogs? Here’s all you need to know - November 3, 2020
-
A Guide: How to Build Your Very Own Magic Mirror - February 14, 2019
-
Our Top Inspirational Baseball Stars - November 24, 2018
-
Five Tech Tools That Will Help You Turn Your Blog into a Business - November 24, 2018
-
How to Indulge on Vacation without Expanding Your Waist - November 9, 2018
-
5 Strategies for Businesses to Appeal to Today’s Increasingly Mobile-Crazed Customers - November 9, 2018
Action Plan on ‘Start-up India’ to be unveiled on Jan 16: PM
Modi and Sharif shook hands and chatted briefly in Kathmandu in November a year ago, although a recent book by an Indian journalist says they also held a secret one-hour meeting, a claim denied by the Indian foreign office.
Advertisement
“We welcome the thaw in Pak-India relations, but to have a business associate arrange the two prime ministers’ meetings has an underlying conflict of interest”, he tweeted.
Akbar, however, said a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations can not be written by a single author but by two authors and who read from the same page.
Asked about what transpired between the talks between the two heads, he said it was not a structured dialogue but an attempt to build atmosphere which was successful.
Modi and Sharif have had a stop-start diplomatic relationship since the Indian premier’s surprise decision to invite Sharif to his inauguration in May 2014.
Earlier today, Modi said in Kabul that Afghanistan will benefit when terrorism is contained and doesn’t dictate the choices its citizens make.
On Friday, Modi and Sharif agreed that their foreign secretaries would meet in mid-January to restart talks.
“The challenge in India-Pakistan relations has always been to keep up the momentum of talks despite hiccups that are inevitable”, J. Jegannathan, professor of South Asian studies at the Central University of Jammu, told The Telegraph.
In what appears to be an unprecedented gesture by Prime Minister Sharif, he both received and saw off Modi at Lahore airport.
Hafiz Saeed is accused as the mastermind behind the plotting of 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Modi’s visit underscores the more overt role India sees in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s advance is complicating a planned withdrawal of U.S. forces. Mr Modi and Mr Sharif had first met in New Delhi, when the latter had come to attend the Indian Prime Ministers oath-taking ceremony on his invitation on May 26, last year.
While Pakistan’s army may have changed its thinking on talks, even the landmark Modi visit or support from influential facilitators does not guarantee success in a fraught peace process where all sides remain deeply suspicious.
As the experience in Syria and Iraq has shown, extremism not only thrives in such vacuums, it also expands from them and can wreak terror in distant capitals.
Advertisement
The BJP veteran recalled former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s initiative of visiting Lahore saying the present leadership needs to take it forward.