India and Pakistan agree to take relations to higher level
Source: Agencies |
April 9, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
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THE leaders of India and Pakistan agreed in talks yesterday that their countries should adopt a step-by-step approach to resolve their differences and build on a recent thaw in their strained relations.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said their first meeting in nearly three years was friendly and constructive.
"Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That's our common desire," Singh said after the private talks, at which no aides were present.
Zardari said: "We would like to have better relations."
Singh said he had accepted an invitation from Zardari to visit Pakistan as soon as mutually acceptable dates are worked out. Before yesterday, the two had not met since June 2009, when they met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
"We have a number of issues, but we are willing to find practical and pragmatic solutions to all those issues," Singh said. "That's the message President Zardari and I would like to convey."
Although Zardari was in India on what was called a private religious trip, the one-day visit gave him a chance to meet Indian leaders amid a thaw in bilateral ties.
He later visited Ajmer Sharif, a revered Muslim shrine in the western state of Rajasthan.
Zardari's visit to India, the first by a Pakistani head of state in seven years, is the most visible sign that the two nations have put behind them the enmity that followed the 2008 attacks in Mumbai in which 10 Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people.
India has blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group for the Mumbai attacks and demanded that Islamabad crack down on the militants. Last week, the US put a US$10 million bounty on Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the group's founder.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said their first meeting in nearly three years was friendly and constructive.
"Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That's our common desire," Singh said after the private talks, at which no aides were present.
Zardari said: "We would like to have better relations."
Singh said he had accepted an invitation from Zardari to visit Pakistan as soon as mutually acceptable dates are worked out. Before yesterday, the two had not met since June 2009, when they met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
"We have a number of issues, but we are willing to find practical and pragmatic solutions to all those issues," Singh said. "That's the message President Zardari and I would like to convey."
Although Zardari was in India on what was called a private religious trip, the one-day visit gave him a chance to meet Indian leaders amid a thaw in bilateral ties.
He later visited Ajmer Sharif, a revered Muslim shrine in the western state of Rajasthan.
Zardari's visit to India, the first by a Pakistani head of state in seven years, is the most visible sign that the two nations have put behind them the enmity that followed the 2008 attacks in Mumbai in which 10 Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people.
India has blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group for the Mumbai attacks and demanded that Islamabad crack down on the militants. Last week, the US put a US$10 million bounty on Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the group's founder.
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