NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Pakistan in November to attend the SAARC Summit, India’s High Commissioner said in comments published on Tuesday.
Gautam Bambawale also told an event in Karachi on Monday that while India and Pakistan must certainly discuss the entire range of issues, they must keep their focus on economy which he described as a ‘low-hanging fruit’.
“I can’t say about the future but as of today Prime Minister Modi is looking forward to visiting Islamabad for the SAARC summit in November,” the Indian news agency PTI quoted Bambawale as saying at an interactive session of the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations.
His comments came amid reports that Modi might keep away from the Saarc Summit in view of the rising tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly over Jammu and Kashmir.
Bambawale said that it was India’s desire to see a Pakistan which was moderate, prosperous and stable and at peace with itself, its neighbours as well as the rest of the world.
He admitted that trust and confidence was lacking in relations between New Delhi and Islamabad.
The road to normalization of Pakistan-India relations, he said, lay through greater trade and business, the roadmap for which was prepared by the two governments in 2012.