“Peace, healing and reconciliation” were the words Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao used to describe the “re-engagement” between India and Pakistan after a 90-minute conversation between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at Mohali.
The two prime ministers watched the cricket match between India and Pakistan at the semi-final of the world cup today. The talks represented good atmospherics, and nothing was allowed to mar it, top sources told Business Standard. In his dinner speech, the prime minister said India and Pakistan should put behind them ancient animosities and attend to ‘our nations’. He said the message from Mohali was that people of both the countries wanted peace and amity and both the prime ministers would work for it.
Rao denied that the Indian prime minister had, by deciding to re-engage with Pakistan, put behind the Mumbai attack. She said Singh emphasised that both India and Pakistan should strive for an atmosphere free of terror and violence.
Rao said the two prime ministers agreed that the issue of terrorism should be addressed in a “cooperative spirit, jointly”. She said the two also agreed to exchange delegations of MPs and have deeper and wider cricketing ties.
Pakistan invited the Indian prime minister for a visit. The invitation had been accepted and the dates would be announced soon, she said.
“Like we talk about the Thimphu spirit after the two prime ministers met in Bhutan last year, today we have a Mohali spirit, an extremely positive and encouraging spirit,” Rao says.
The two had a substantive conversation. However, exchanges over dinner were related only to sport. The prime minister referred to the fact that Gilani’s forefathers were responsible for a substantial contribution to the building of the Golden Temple.
More From This Section
There will be a flurry of exchanges till the end of the year, including talks between the surveyor generals of the two countries, besides commerce secretaries, foreign secretaries and foreign ministers.
The seating plan at the dinner was interesting. The Indian prime minister was seated next to Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Chaudhary Ahmad Mukhtar. Mukhtar is a US-educated businessman who has been in the Pakistan People’s Party only since 1990. He has been chairman of Pakistan International Airlines since 2008 and was commerce minister in the 1993-1996 Benazir Bhutto government. He was defeated by Yousuf Raza Gilani for the prime minister’s post in 2008.
Also seated at the head table next to Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was Hina Rabbani Khar, who was born in 1977 and represents the fractious state of Multan. She became minister of state for foreign affairs in February, when Gilani appointed a new cabinet. She is the first woman minister of state for foreign affairs in Pakistan’s history. Educated at MIT and convenor of the Young Parliamentarians Forum in Pakistan, Khar is also the first woman in Pakistan to present a Budget.
Afsandar Wali Khan, who was seated at the head table, is from Peshawar. He was elected from Charsadda and escaped an assassination attempt last Eid. He is the grandson of Badshah Khan, also known as Frontier Gandhi, who founded the organisation ‘Khudai Khidmatgar’.
Rehman Malik, the current interior minister of Pakistan, is formerly from the lower bureaucracy of the Federal Intelligence Agency who rose to head the organisation during prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s second tenure. He was part of the delegation and seated at the prime minister’s table. The prime minister also had by his side the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar. Rahul Gandhi and Afsandar Wali Khan were further down the table. On the other side of the rectangular table, Gilani was flanked by Shivraj Patil, the governor of Punjab, and Sonia Gandhi. The chief ministers Punjab and Haryana were also at the table, as was National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon.