Pak Foreign Minister to visit India from Friday

“The visit will help Pakistan and India carry forward the peace process and address outstanding issues,” said Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.

During his meeting with his Indian counterpart, Qureshi will discuss “issues of mutual interest and explore the possibility of furthering bilateral cooperation for the common benefit and prosperity of the two countries”, Sadiq told a weekly news briefing.

Qureshi will be accompanied by a six-member delegation comprising senior officials and recently appointed Ambassador-at-Large Nasir Ali Khan. He is scheduled to hold talks with Mukherjee at Hyderabad House on Friday.

He is expected to call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia the same day. Qureshi will also meet a delegation of Kashmiri leaders in New Delhi, Sadiq said.

A delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is currently visiting Pakistan at Qureshi’s invitation for consultations with the top Pakistani leadership ahead of the Foreign Minister’s visit to India.

Qureshi will also travel to Ajmer, where he will visit the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, and Chandigarh, where he will participate in a meet aimed at increasing cooperation between India’s Punjab state and Pakistan’s Punjab province.

He will deliver the keynote address at an event organized in Chandigarh by the Centre for Rural and Industrial Development, which cooperates with the Farmers Association of Pakistan, an organisation the Foreign Minister is closely associated with.

The visit will pave the way for the fifth round of the India-Pakistan composite dialogue. Qureshi’s talks with Mukherjee will be a follow-up to discussions held in Islamabad in May to resume the composite dialogue after a gap of several months caused by the domestic political situation in Pakistan.

The meeting between the two foreign ministers was preceded by a meeting of the India-Pakistan Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism in Islamabad on June 24.