Nawaz, Modi may meet at Russia summit

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad has hinted at a possible meet up between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of an upcoming regional cooperation summit in Russia.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian political, economic and military organisation, is scheduled to meet in the Russian city of Ufa on July 9 and 10 with both India and Pakistan likely to be granted full-membership of the forum formed in 2001.

“No side has contacted the other for a meeting, but in any multilateral setting, meetings among heads of states are a normal feature,” said Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah at his weekly briefing on Thursday.

If it does take place, the meeting between PM Nawaz and Modi will be the first high-level contact between the two hyphenated neighbours since August last year. While hostile anti-Pakistan statements from New Delhi made matters worse, there has been a lull since the Indian PM telephoned his Pakistani counterpart to convey greetings at the start of the holy month of Ramazan.

In a sign that both countries are trying to create a favourable atmosphere, the FO spokesperson also denied media reports that Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Dr Maliha Lodhi was in Islamabad for consultations with the government to raise the issue of Indian interference in the internal matters of Pakistan at the world body.

“Pakistani permanent representative in New York is in Islamabad for routine consultations. A broad range of issues of Pakistan’s interest at the United Nations is being discussed,” Khalilullah said without making any reference to India. In reply to a question, he said the British authorities had yet to respond to Islamabad’s request seeking access to facts of the recent BBC report on the alleged MQM-India nexus.