India, Pak Foreign Ministers to Meet in New York After Imran Khan Writes to PM Modi

New Delhi: In a major development, the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday confirmed that India and Pakistan would meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month. Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar confirmed a meeting between Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

"This is a meeting we have agreed to and should not be confused with a dialogue. The meeting has been agreed to as per the request from Pakistan. How and when it will take place will be decided by the missions. The agenda has not been finalised," Kumar said

Kumar, however, also added that the environment was not conducive for conducting the SAARC Summit in Pakistan. Earlier this year in April, India had snubbed Pakistan and said it was difficult to proceed with the SAARC initiative, citing continuous support to cross-border terrorism by the neighbour.

SAARC summits are usually held biennially and hosted by a member state in alphabetical order. The member state hosting the summit assumes the Chair of the Association. The last SAARC Summit in 2014 was held in Kathmandu, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 2016 SAARC summit was to be held in Islamabad but after the terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri on September 18 that year, India expressed its inability to participate in the summit due to “prevailing circumstances”.

The development comes as it was revealed that Khan wrote to Narendra Modi seeking resumption of dialogue between the two neighbours. In a letter dated September 14, the cricketer-turned-politician, who became the prime minister last month, proposed a meeting between Qureshi and Swaraj.

Khan's letter is the first formal proposal of bilateral dialogue since he formed the government in Pakistan last month. Referring to the PM as ‘Modi Sahab’, he said Pakistan remains ready to discuss terrorism. India has made it clear to Pakistan on several occasions that ties and terror would not go together. The Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria had, last month, met Khan in Islamabad.