Modi-Sharif talks may take place today

Pak PM wants to pick up where he left off with Vajpayee in 1999

A day before his maiden meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan’s Premier M Nawaz Sharif on Monday expressed his hope to work with the new leader of India to pick up the thread from where he and his then counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee had left it in 1999.

Sharif attended the swearing-in ceremony of Modi and his Council of Ministers at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. He is likely to have a bilateral meeting with Modi on Tuesday.

“I intend taking up threads from where Vajpayee and I left off in 1999,” Prime Minister of Pakistan said in a TV interview, shortly after arriving in New Delhi to attend the oath-taking ceremony of Modi.
He was referring to the ‘Lahore Declaration’ that he and Vajpayee had inked on February 21, 1999 during his second-term as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Vajpayee headed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government in New Delhi from 1998 to 2004. He travelled to Lahore by bus in February 1999 and had a historic summit with Sharif.

Though Vajpayee-Sharif summit raised hope for a thaw amidst the complex ties between India and Pakistan, it was belied by the ‘Kargil Conflict’ between May and July 1999 and the coup d'état staged by the Pakistani Army led by Gen Pervez Musharraf in October that year.

Praise for Vajpayee

Sharif on Monday said that he had “greatest of respects” for Vajpayee. He also noted that the BJP had been in power in New Delhi when he and Vajpayee had made significant progress towards resolving the contentious issues in the bilateral relations.

The same party had now been voted back to power in New Delhi, added the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He compared the landslide victory of the BJP in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections with that of his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in the parliamentary elections in his country in May 2013. “Both governments have a strong mandate. This could help in turning a new page in our relations,” Sharif said on Monday.

The bilateral meeting between Modi and Sharif on Tuesday will be the first official engagement between India and Pakistan after the change of guard in New Delhi.

Not only Sharif, but five other leaders of the Saarc nations — outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala and Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay have also attended the ceremony after being invited by Modi.

With Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on a tour to Japan, Bangladesh was represented by the Speaker of the country’s Parliament, Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury. Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam also attended the ceremony.

Though Modi often targeted the Congress-led Government’s allegedly soft policy in Pakistan during his campaign for the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls, his gesture of inviting Sharif and other South Asian leaders to the swearing-in ceremony was seen as a diplomatic move to reach out to the neighbourhood.

While all other Saarc leaders were quick to confirm their attendance in the swearing-in ceremony of Modi, Sharif took three days to positively respond to the invitation from New Delhi, ostensibly due to the strong resistance from the hard-liners in his government.