In a sudden development, President Asif Ali Zardari has decided not to attend the NAM Summit in Egypt next month, apparently to avoid another meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose blunt public comments appear to have annoyed Pakistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will lead the Pakistani delegation to the Summit at Sharm-el Shaikh on July 15, the Foreign Office announced, a day after Singh had told reporters that he and Zardari would be meeting on the sidelines of the Summit.
At the start of their ice-breaking meeting at Yekaterinburg in Russia on Tuesday, Singh had told Zardari in full glare of international media that his mandate was limited to telling that Pakistan should not allow its soil to be used for terrorism against India.
It had been announced later that the foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet to discuss terrorism and then the two leaders would “take stock” of their deliberations when they meet in Sharm-el Shaikh.
Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit, however, sought to play down the development.
