New Delhi: In a potential game-changer in volatile bilateral ties, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Sunday accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan, with India indicating that concrete actions against anti-India terrorists and a speedier resolution of less contentious issues like disputes over the Siachen glacier and Sir Creek marshland could form the showpiece of the much-awaited trip.
India and Pakistan, which resumed their dialogue in February last year after a post 26/11 pause, moved a step closer to their ‘common desire’ of normalising relations after a business-like lunch and 40 minutes one-one-talks talks between visiting Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Dr Singh here.
Zardari touched down here in the morning on a six-hour private visit cloaked as a pilgrimage to the Sufi shrine at Ajmer in Rajasthan.
Dr Singh pressed Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror spree to justice and act against 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, who is continuing with his hate India speeches with impunity, but the talks largely focused on mapping out a forward-looking agenda focusing around trade and the peace dividend that will ensue.
In a sign of paradigm shift, Zardari invoked the ‘India-China’ model for bilateral ties, which entails focusing on scaling up trade while resolving more complex outstanding issues like Kashmir in a step-by-step incremental fashion.
Dr Singh acknowledged that Pakistan was moving forward on trade issues — a reference to Islamabad’s movement in the direction of granting New Delhi the Most Favoured Nation status — as both leaders agreed to tap economic potential for trade and investment and broaden economic agenda between the two countries.
In a step forward, the two leaders directed their home secretaries to discuss the issue of terror and sign a pact on easing the visa regime.
After a warm handshake and clasp and smiles for the media, the two leaders sat down for talks, which Dr Singh said were ‘very constructive and friendly’.
Dr Singh surprised many when he announced, at a joint appearance with Zardari, that he would be ‘very happy’ to visit Pakistan, the most positive indication so far that the Pakistan-born Indian prime minister could after all go on his maiden visit to the neighbouring country.
“President Zardari has also invited me to visit Pakistan … I would be very happy to visit Pakistan on a mutually convenient date,” said Dr Singh, who was born in the village in Gah in Pakistani Punjab.
If the visit takes place, it will be the first by an Indian prime minister to Pakistan in the last eight years. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the last Indian prime minister to visit Pakistan in 2004.
The prime minister raised the issue of terrorism and conveyed to the Pakistan president that it “was imperative that perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack be brought to justice,” Mathai said.
Responding to India’s concerns, Zardari said that Pakistan is as much a victim of terrorism as India and said that there ‘were some legal issues’ on the Pakistani side.
“The relation between India and Pakistan should become normal, that’s our common desire,” Dr Singh said.
He stressed that the two sides were “willing to find practical, pragmatic solutions” to all issues dogging their ties.
Greeting the Indian people with a Salaam Walaykum, a beaming Zardari stressed that India and Pakistan are neighbours and ‘we will like to have better relations with India’. (IANS)