NEW DELHI – Ahead of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session, IndianExternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will hold an informal meeting withSAARC foreign ministers. According to news agency ANI, Pakistan’s ForeignMinister Mehmood Qureshi is also likely to attend.
On August 17, the External Affairs Minister had met Pakistan’s Law andInformation Minister Syed Ali Zafar who was in Delhi to represent AtalBehari Vajpayee’s funeral.
Syed Ali Zafar was accompanied by Director India at Ministry of ForeignAffairs (MoFA), Fareha Bugti, Director General South Asia, South AsianAssociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Spokesperson at MoFA,Muhammad Faisal and Director to Law and Information Minister, DanyalGillani.
All eyes are on how New Delhi and Islamabad deal with diplomatic relationspostlinkKhan era.
India and Pakistan have not yet finalised any bilateral ministerial meetingon the sidelines of the forthcoming sessions of the United Nations GeneralAssembly’s (UNGA) scheduled next month.
While External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj will be in New York,coinciding with the visit of her Pakistani counterpart Mehmood Qureshi,there are no plans of their meeting till now, sources here said.
“A bilateral meeting in not on the table” they said, denying reports of apossible Swaraj- Qureshi meeting in New York. The 73rd United NationsGeneral Assembly opens on September 18 in New York.
In a letter to New Prime Minister Imran Khan, Prime Minister Narendra Modihad expressed India’s resolve to build good neighbourly relations betweenthe two countries. In July, Modi had telephoned Khan and congratulated himon his party’s victory in the general elections and expressed hope thatboth countries will work to open a new chapter in bilateral ties.