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PM Modi Accepts Invite For First-Ever Trip to Pakistan to Attend SAARC Summit
Highlights
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accepted an invitation from his counterpart Nawaz Sharif to travel to Islamabad next year in what would be his first visit to Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accepted an invitation from his counterpart Nawaz Sharif to travel to Islamabad next year in what would be his first visit to Pakistan.
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"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reiterated his invitation to Prime Minister Modi to visit Pakistan for the SAARC Summit in 2016. Prime Minister Modi accepted that invitation," said a joint statement from the governments after the two leaders met in Russia.
India had previously refused to confirm Mr Modi's participation at the next summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which brings together the leaders of eight countries.
While Mr Sharif had attended PM Modi's swearing-in ceremony in May last year, relations between the two governments went into deep freeze because of repeated violations of the ceasefire along the border in Jammu and Kashmir. Then, India cancelled talks between the Foreign Secretaries of both countries after the Pakistani envoy in Delhi consulted Kashmiri separatists ahead of the dialogue.
Today, a joint statement read out by both Foreign Secretaries said their respective National Security Advisors will meet in Delhi to discuss "terrorism" although a date was not set. Importantly, the top army commanders of the Pakistani Rangers and India's Border Security Force will meet in person in an attempt to de-escalate the tension along the Jammu and Kashmir border, where an Indian jawan was shot dead yesterday.
Mr Modi and Mr Sharif met while attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which is being held in the Russian city of Ufa.
India has repeatedly expressed its frustration with delays in Pakistan's trial of Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who was released from jail earlier this year.
In today's statement, the two governments said they would "discuss ways and means" to expedite the legal process, including the sharing of voice samples.
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