India, Pak decide to revive stalled dialogue, NSAs to meet

New Delhi had previously refrained from confirming Modi’s participation in the next summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in the Pakistani capital.

“They agreed that India and Pakistan have a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development”, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Chaudhry said, signaling that the two countries are ready to pick up the threads again.

The statement included joint, albeit vague, commitments on some of the most contentious issues between them, including speeding up efforts to bring those behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks to justice.

“It is the first time Pakistan has accepted to combat terrorism in “all its forms””, said MJ Akbar, spokesman for India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party. “Prime Minister Modi accepted that invitation”, the statement said. The letter marked a major reversal of Pakistan’s position for over a decade, sending bilateral relations between the two countries plummeting.

The joint statement also spelt out a number of decisions, including early meetings of BSF Director General and his counterpart.

“An important concession has been made by Pakistan”, he said.

Sharif was elected in Pakistan in 2013 on the back of promises to rebuild relations with India, but has come under pressure to toughen his stance from hardliners at home, particularly within the army. Sharif and Modi also pledged enhanced cooperation between security forces at the India-Pakistan border, where violent clashes between troops are a frequent occurrence, and the release of hundreds of fishermen from both countries – imprisoned for straying into the other’s worldwide waters – within 15 days.

The two sides also chose to have a mechanism for facilitating religious tourism.

Tensions have been high since the last time the two leaders met one-on-one, which was at PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in May 2014.

“It (Modi’s meeting with Pakistan’s premier Nawaz Sharif) is neither historic nor a breakthrough…”

Modi, in a dark grey bandhgala, received Sharif and the two leaders warmly shook hands and posed for the shutterbugs before settling down for the talks.

“It is quite odd that Kashmir has not been part of the statement”, he said.

“And even then it is not complete because what they have decided is that several discussions will take place in some key sectors and only then will a view be taken on a dialogue”, Mansingh told IANS.