Sushma Swaraj, Sartaj Aziz will meet this week in Nepal

Pak to formally invite Modi to Saarc summit in November

Mr Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan PM’s foreign affairs adviser, will meet external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on the sidelines of the Saarc ministerial conference on Thursday in Pokhara, Nepal, to extend Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif’s formal invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the 19th Saarc summit in Islamabad. Mr Modi is likely to travel to Pakistan for the summit in November.

In New Delhi, government sources confirmed that Ms Swaraj and Mr Aziz would meet Thursday on the Saarc meeting’s sidelines. Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar may also meet his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry in an informal setting. India is once again likely to make it clear to Pakistan at the Swaraj-Aziz meeting that it wants strong action by Islamabad against those responsible for planning and executing the Pathankot airbase attack from Pakistani soil.

Ms Swaraj and Mr Aziz may also discuss the possibility of an interaction between Mr Modi and Mr Sharif later this month in Washington where both are scheduled to attend the Nuclear Security Summit being hosted by US President Barack Obama.

This will be the second meeting between Ms Swaraj and Mr Aziz after December 9, when the two sides announced the resumption of the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue.

The meeting of Mr Aziz with Ms Swaraj is bound to break the ice somewhat between the political leaderships of the two nations after the Pathankot attack in January this year, though the NSAs of the two countries have been in touch on the matter. The MEA has also said the foreign secretaries of the two countries have also been in touch.

The foreign secretary-level talks between the two nations had been postponed following the Pathankot attack and are yet to be rescheduled. As reported earlier, India will wait for the outcome of the proposed visit to India by the Pakistani SIT, that is probing the conspiracy on Pakistani soil by Jaish-e-Mohammed militants that led to the attack, before taking a decision on scheduling the FS-level talks.

Pakistan, in a statement issued on Monday, said: “The adviser to the Prime Minister on foreign affairs, Mr Sartaj Aziz, will meet foreign ministers of Saarc countries on the sidelines of the Saarc council of ministers meeting on March 17, 2016, in Nepal to extend Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s formal invitation to their respective heads of state/heads of government for the 19th Saarc Summit, being hosted by Pakistan in Islamabad this year.”

Prime Minister Modi had made a brief stopover in Lahore last Christmas to personally wish the Pakistan PM on his birthday and this will be his second visit to Pakistan if he eventually visits Islamabad for the Saarc summit this year.

Pakistani officials in Islamabad have apparently said the scheduling of Mr Modi’s proposed visit is already being worked out jointly by the two nations, but Indian officials have hinted no schedule has been decided so far or being worked out as yet in the matter.