The Most awaited India-Pakistan meeting come to reality, Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj is set for talks along with her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz as well as Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of a convention on Afghanistan in Islamabad on Wednesday.
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While acknowledging the need to undertake confidence-building measures in order to engender trust, both dignitaries agreed to further enhance mutual relations by enhancing the ongoing Pak-Afghan security cooperation. She also addressed the conference on Afghanistan and said it was time India and Pakistan displayed “maturity and self-confidence” to do business with each other and strengthen regional trade. She asserted that India was prepared to move ahead their cooperation at a pace which Pakistan is comfortable with, while resolving to aid Afghanistan “through more effective transit arrangements”.
The Iranian foreign minister is scheduled to deliver a speech at the fifth ministerial conference of Heart of Asia- Istanbul Process and push forward Iran’s stance on the Afghan issue and introduce the country’s efforts to help Afghanistan’s peaceful reconstruction and national reconciliation.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Ufa, Russia, in July, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had invited Modi to attend the Saarc summit next year which the latter had accepted.
Sushma Swaraj is the first Indian minister to visit Pakistan since the visit of then external affairs minister SM Krishna in 2012. “Let me take this opportunity to extend our hand to Pakistan as well”, she said.
The Indian external affairs minister, however, did not mention the cricket series.
“In the past, there has been the temptation to use non-state actors as instruments of foreign policy”, he told the conference, a clear reference to Afghan assertions that Pakistan supports the Taliban to maintain influence in Afghanistan and block the influence of its rival, India.
Sushma’s pointed silence on India’s traditional allegations against Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan could be understandable, Sood said, if Kabul itself was coy about blaming Islamabad for its problems at the summit today.
Ghani subsequently blamed Pakistan for a surge in Taliban attacks inside Afghanistan, accusing Islamabad of sending “messages of war”. They said that Pakistan wants an worldwide presence in the entire process because of the long history of mistrust and suspicions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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Ghani and Swaraj will also hold bilateral talks with Sharif before the conference issues a joint declaration.
