Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s top foreign policy aide and India’s external affairs minister are likely to meet on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) in Nepal this week.
Both Sartaj Aziz and Sushma Swaraj will be travelling to Pokhara city of Nepal for the Saarc Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting on March 16 and 17. Senior officials, including foreign secretaries of the two countries, will accompany them.
Although a bilateral meeting in Nepal has not been confirmed as yet, but if held, will provide an opportunity to the two sides to discuss the much-delayed talks between the foreign secretaries, who were to meet in Islamabad in January. The key foreign secretary-level talks are meant to draw up a roadmap for a series of meetings between the two countries on a range of issues, including Kashmir, peace and security, Siachen, Sir Creek, water, and trade and commerce.
The two neighbours apparently hit a deadlock in resuming the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue after the Pathankot airbase attack that India claimed was carried out by militants from Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad militant group.
India has already confirmed that its external affairs minister and the foreign secretary will participate in the Saarc ministerial meeting but did not say if any bilateral meeting with Pakistani delegates was planned.
However, official sources said the two countries were in touch with each other, and there was ‘every likelihood’ that meeting between foreign ministers and foreign secretaries will take place.
Sources said Aziz and Swaraj, if they meet, will discuss the possibility of an interaction between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi later this month in Washington. Nawaz and Modi are scheduled to travel to the United States to attend a nuclear security summit.