Pakistan Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, will be in India on December 3-4, the Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Wednesday.
The announcement about Mr. Aziz’s travel plans for the Heart of Asia meet in Amritsar opened up possibilities of a round of high-level dialogue, in the backdrop of the ongoing exchange of fire.
MEA refused to confirm if bilateral talks would be part of the agenda. But diplomatic sources have not ruled out meetings between Mr. Aziz and Indian interlocutors on the sidelines of the event that will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Mr. Aziz had earlier told Pakistani media about his plans to participate in the conference. “It’s a good opportunity to defuse tension,” he was quoted as having told a Pakistan TV channel.
Threat of isolation
The announcement of the visit is significant, as it came a day after Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar talked about regional groups in South Asia without Pakistan after the SAARC summit of November was cancelled following the September 18 attack on Indian soldiers in Uri.
“Pakistan risks relations with other SAARC countries if it doesn’t follow basic standards of regional cooperation,” Mr. Jaishankar said on Monday in Delhi. Pakistan should allow regional connectivity if it wished to remain a part of the South Asian regional grouping.
Mr. Aziz will be the first high-level Pakistani official to visit India since the postponement of the SAARC summit in Islamabad. Mr. Aziz had blamed India for the cancellation, after other members of SAARC followed India and withdrew from the summit.
The Heart of Asia conference is significant as it comes a year after Mr. Aziz and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj launched the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue (CBD) process, which could not start because of the Pathankot terror attack of January 2.
Conference agenda
Interlocutors of the Heart of Asia conference held a session at the Indian Council of World Affairs on November 16 when counter-terror, poverty elimination and connectivity, and disaster management were discussed as the agenda for the conference.
Apart from Mr. Aziz, the meeting is likely to be attended by foreign ministers and representatives of 13 other member-countries of the Heart of Asia process, which was launched in Istanbul in 2011.
