Gilani, Manmohan meet briefly at nuclear summit

Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani and Indian PM Manmohan Singh on Monday had a brief meeting before the official dinner on sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit. “Prime Minister said hello to Mr Gilani,” Indian sources said, describing it as a “meet and greet” encounter. Earlier, both the Indian and Pakistani sides said that no formal meeting was scheduled between Singh and Gilani but at the same time they did not rule out a ‘pull aside’ meeting during the summit.
Separately, Gilani and his Turkish counterpart Recap Tayyip Erdogan met on the sidelines of the summit and discussed bilateral relations, regional and international situation and agreed to further promote trade and economic relations between the two countries. The Turkish PM said that Turkey was interested to invest in various projects in the field of energy and communication. He informed Gilani that there was wide scope for Turkish investors on different projects in hydel, thermal and renewable energy and other development projects especially in Balochistan.
Referring to bilateral trade, the Turkish side informed that during 2011 trade balance remained in favour of Pakistan. The Turkish PM said that Turkish firm Zorlu was investing for 50MW power project in Jhimper in windmill. He said there would be more investment in energy sector from Turkey.
Gilani, appreciating Turkish investment in various projects in Pakistan also emphasised the need for early completion of motorway projects especially from Gwadar to Nishtar Ghat and Karachi to Hyderabad to improve connectivity as it is important to improve development activities.
Also on Monday, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono assured Pakistan that it will discuss with all the members of the ASEAN to give Full Dialogue Partner status to Pakistan. During a meeting with Gilani on sidelines of the summit, both the leaders discussed various options to further promote and enhance bilateral relations in all fields. Gilani informed the Indonesian president, “We recognise and fully appreciate that the consensus on Pakistan’s membership to ARF during the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting emerged due to Indonesia’s active support to our candidature.” He said ASEAN achieved greater success under the leadership of Indonesia last year.
Gilani also thanked Indonesia for extending support for Pakistan’s request for Full Dialogue Partnership with ASEAN to further develop the collaboration with ASEAN in a more effective manner.