Manmohan Singh Meets Pakistan Opposition Leaders, Stress On Closer Ties

The Dawn

By Jawed Naqvi

NEW DELHI, May 9: A delegation of the People’s Party Parliamentarians met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Tuesday, but there were few details of what transpired in the 45-minute meeting at his residence.

PPP chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who led the six-member delegation, said on the phone that the need for a greater people-to-people contact between the two countries was discussed.

“The prime minister said our people needed to come even closer today and we discussed the need to improve visa facilities,” Mr Fahim said. He was speaking after the delegation was feted to a dinner by Indian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs E. Ahamed.

The two sides agreed on the need to expedite the reopening of consulates in Mumbai and Karachi.

The Pakistan high commission here is treating the visit as a private affair and its officials said they were not briefed about the meeting with the prime minister or anyone else.

Some officials said privately the PPP visit was taking place at the invitation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had used its offices to arrange a meeting with the prime minister.

Mr Fahim described the visit as part of ‘party-to-party consultations’ but declined to say why no leader from the Congress party figured in the meetings.

The delegation was hosted to a dinner by former foreign minister Jaswant Singh after its arrival on Monday. The PPP leaders will meet the former minister again on Wednesday before returning to Lahore.

They will also meet Indian opposition leader Lal Kishan Advani.

Mr Fahim said about the absence of a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi: “She was busy with her election campaign and she is still busy with the post-election issues.”