Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to meet his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Maldives early next month. The proposed meeting would provide fresh impetus to the renewed peace efforts between the two countries with a series of official-level talks. Preparations are underway for the meeting in Male, where the heads of governments of the eight SAARC countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, will gather for their 17th summit on 10-11 November. A Delhi-based newspaper quoting official sources said that Singh-Gilani talks were “highly likely”.
Singh’s first meeting with Gilani this year took place on March 30 when the latter accepted Singh’s invitation to visit Mohali to watch the India-Pakistan cricket World Cup semi-final. The dialogue on the margins of the event was described as “extremely positive and encouraging” by then foreign secretary Nirupama Rao. It provided a boost to the official talks that resumed after Rao had met her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu, in February. The break in dialogue happened after a terror attack in Mumbai in November 2008 that left 166 people dead. India blamed Pakistan-based militant groups for plotting the attack. Subsequent attempts to resume talks did not yield results. It was only this year that both sides began talks again with the aim of narrowing differences on a series of issues.
The resumed talks have yielded small steps in efforts to reduce the trust deficit. Reports last week said Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had told the country’s National Assembly that Pakistan had in principle decided to grant India a “most-favoured nation” status – a move that would give a fillip to bilateral commerce. Adopting a cautious approach on current US-Pak rift, India on Thursday said it “sincerely” hoped the “two friendly powers” will be able to settle their differences across the table, failing which it can have “devastating consequences” for other countries in the region. “Anything which upsets the region will have devastating consequences on the developmental agenda of other countries, more particularly India. So, we sincerely hope that they will be able to solve their differences,” External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said.
