Setting the stage for a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in the United States on March 31-April 1, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Thursday said a Pakistani team, formed to probe the Pathankot airbase attack, will arrive in India on March 27 and “begin their work” the next day. Swaraj’s announcement came after she met Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Foreign Affairs Advisor, on the sidelines of the SAARC foreign ministers’ meeting in Pokhara, Nepal, and they discussed progress on the Pakistani probe into the Pathankot attack. Watch Video Ind & Pak Talks At SAARC Meet: Will There Be More Than The Usual Rhetoric? “The two ministers and their foreign secretaries also discussed Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar’s detention,” a source told The Indian Express. While they met for barely 20 minutes Thursday, they had long conversations over dinner Wednesday and over breakfast Thursday on the issue, the source said. [related-post] “It is not possible that Pathankot be not discussed in my meeting with Sartaj Aziz. the date for JIT visit has been decided. It will arrive on (March) 27th night and will begin their work on March 28,” Swaraj said addressing the media with Aziz after their talks. Aziz, who acknowledged for the first time that Pathankot had come in the way of the comprehensive dialogue process, said, “But the way the Pathankot incident was handled on both sides was satisfactory.” He also expressed hope that Sharif and Modi will meet in the US. The two leaders will be in Washington DC for the Nuclear Security Summit on March 31-April 1. “I am not sure whether there will be a structured dialogue but we are hopeful they will meet,” he said. Aziz handed over an invitation to Swaraj for Prime Minister Modi to attend the SAARC Summit being hosted by Pakistan on November 9-10 this year. Swaraj said she had accepted the invitation on behalf of the Prime Minister and thanked Sharif and Aziz. The permission for the Pakistani special investigation team to come to India appears to have been given after some careful thought, although Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had been quite vocal with his reservations on the issue. Sources told The Indian Express that Pakistan proposed March 27 for the visit during the meetings between the foreign ministers and secretaries. Indian officials contacted the PMO and, after getting a nod from Delhi, agreed. A tip-off from Pakistan’s NSA in the last week or so about a possible terror attack in India is said to have added a layer of trust in the scheme of things. This parallel conversation between the NSAs has laid the track to rebuild the trust deficit between the two sides.
