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| Will Manmohan Singh visit Islamabad during Guru Purab in November? | | | ET Report
jammu, July 28: When will Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, visit Islamabad? Interest in this question surfaced after Pakistan President, Asif Ali Zardari, sent a formal communication to Manmohan Singh inviting him to visit Islamabad and his ancestral village in Pakistan.
Reports from across said that President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday formally invited the Indian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan, which could be treated as part of Zardari's aim at removing trust deficit. Zardari has sent a letter to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and invited him to visit Pakistan and the letter has been sent through the High Commission (of Pakistan in India) and the President also invited PM Manmohan Singh to visit his ancestral hometown in Pakistan.
Well Zardari is keen to see Manmohan Singh in Pakistan during the anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, which falls on November 28. But Government circles argue that Manmohan Singh's visit to Islamabad is likely to depend on the progress Pakistan Government makes in the investigation in the Mumbai terrorist strike which had been engineered by Pakistani fundamentalists.
In fact Zardari is so keen to see Manmohan Singh in Pakistan that he (Zardari) has used diplomatic skills in convincing New Delhi about Islamabad's sincere interest in promoting peace in the South Asian region. In his communication to Manmohan Singh, Zardari recalled his "excellent meeting" with Singh in New Delhi during his private visit to Ajmer in April and expressed satisfaction over the forward movement in the bilateral dialogue process that resumed last year.
"We are happy to see that the dialogue process between our two countries is moving forward. Recently, several important engagements between our two sides have taken place," Zardari has said.
"We are confident that the intensity and the range of these engagements will help promote our ties in the right direction and will also help in realising our shared dream of a peaceful and prosperous South Asia," Zardari added.
While congratulating Pakistan's new Premier Raja Pervez Ashraf last month, Singh had hoped that the two countries will continue to make progress in their bilateral dialogue on all issues and build good neighbourly relations by strengthening their cooperation in all areas for the benefit of the people on both sides.
India and Pakistan resumed their peace process early last year after a gap of over two years in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The Foreign Ministers of the two countries are scheduled to meet in Islamabad on September 7 to review the latest round of talks.
The two sides have made considerable progress in talks to normalise trade relations, with Pakistan indicating that it will give India Most Favoured Nation-status by the beginning of next year.
The invitation is the latest bid by the neighbours to normalise relations. Will this exercise succeed? It depends on the steps Islamabad takes in bridling and fixing terrorists who masterminded the Mumbai attacks. |
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