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| Foreign Ministry mum over likely meeting between Indian and Pak PMs in US | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, APR 9: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to leave for Washington tomorrow to attend nuclear security summit of 43 nations called by US President Barak Obama.
Yet, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman declined here today to either confirm or deny the possibility of a meeting between Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the two-day summit, beginning Monday.
Gilani too is attending the summit devoted to nuclear security, safety, disarmament, non-proliferation and safeguards against pilferage and misuse of nuclear technology by terrorists, rouge elements and non-state actors.
At a Press conference held here today External Affairs Ministry officials spoke at length about Prime Minister’s visit to US and Brazil but when asked whether a bilateral meeting with Pakistan was also on the cards, the Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said, “Prime Minister is expected to have a number of bilateral engagements. We are in the process of finalising the arrangements, the meetings. We will be most happy to share with you the details as soon as the meetings and bilaterals are finalised.”
This leaves the possibility of a likely meeting between Manmohan Singh and Gilani during their US visit or between members of Indian and Pakistani delegations to speculations.
Both Manmohan Singh and Gilani are expected to have bilateral talks separately with US President on the sidelines of the summit.
Today a statement was also issued here on behalf of Prime Minister regarding his visit to America where the possibility of bilateral talks with heads of a number participating countries was indicated on the sidelines of the summit but there was no mention of Pakistan.
This obviously shows that India and Pakistan remain cold towards each other despite a much hyped meeting between their Foreign Secretaries held in February this year in New Delhi in order to break the ice. Nonetheless, Obama is likely to press both Manmohan Singh and Gilani to resume talks and scale down tension in the region.
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