The leaders of Pakistan and India agreed Friday to work for good neigbourly relationship in talks during a brief stopover by India Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore. It’s the first trip to the country by an Indian head of state in a decade – and could be a sign of improving relations between the two neighbors.
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Modi and Sharif had fleetingly met at the Paris Climate Summit on November 30, preparing the atmosphere for a resumption of the stalled bilateral dialogue.
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The next step will be for the two countries’ foreign secretaries to meet in the middle of next month, he added.
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A PML-N source said that Sharif had invited Modi to attend the marriage of his granddaughter Mehrun Nisa which is taking place today at the Sharif’s Raiwind palatial residence.
Security was beefed up at the Lahore International Airport shortly before Modi’s arrival.
While Indian media suggested Modi was the driving force behind the visit, a Pakistan official told AFP it was Islamabad’s idea to arrange a meeting ahead of formal diplomatic talks set for January.
Modi was originally scheduled to visit Islamabad for the SAARC summit in September 2016.
Both countries have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence from Britain in 1947, when the Asian subcontinent was divided into Islamic Pakistan and secular and Hindu-majority India.
India has also alleged that Pakistani militants were behind terror raids on its soil this year, which Islamabad denied.
Indians and Pakistanis shared their thoughts about the milestone visit on Twitter using the hashtag #BirthdayDiplomacy. He said police have also been deployed on the adjoining areas of the airport.
Modi was on his way back from a visit to Russian Federation.
Earlier on Friday, in his speech to the Afghan parliament, Mr Modi urged closer cooperation between India, Pakistan and other neighbours for Afghanistan’s progress. Like leaders of other nations in the world like the EU, ASEAN and even countries in our neighborhood leaders of India and Pakistan too needed to inject informality in their relations.
“You do not conduct diplomacy at the apex level in such a cavalier manner”, Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari told reporters, adding that India-Pakistan ties were of a most “complex and complicated” nature.
India’s main opposition party, Congress, criticised Mr Modi’s “irresponsible” decision. A cease-fire along the India-Pakistan line of control that serves as the Kashmir boundary has largely held since 2003, but firing and gunbattles are fairly common, with each side routinely blaming the other.
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Expectations for the talks have been growing in Pakistan since Sharif appointed a recently retired army general, Nasir Janjua, as his national security adviser and gave him a key role in the dialogue process. The Indian leader may also have seen an opportunity for “a positive headline” after a series of domestic setbacks. “However, more than grand gestures, we need consistency”. “India and Pakistan have to evolve a mechanism to involve the core party to the issue _ that is the Kashmiri people”. Saeed lives in the open in Pakistan and often appears in TV interviews.
