Stand-up India action plan to be launched on January 16

While Indian media suggested Modi was the driving force behind the visit, a Pakistan official said it was Islamabad’s idea to arrange a meeting ahead of formal diplomatic talks set for January.

Responding to a point raised by leader of the opposition Aitzaz Ahsan, Aziz said no secret meeting was held between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan at Kathmandu previous year.

Mr Shujaat said India should change its attitude, stop provocative firing across the Control Line and Working Boundary which resulted in the deaths of our jawans and civilians and stop interference, through its agencies, in Karachi, Balochistan and Fata. After Modi’s departure from Lahore, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said: “It was a goodwill visit and the two sides chose to understand each other’s reservations and restart the comprehensive dialogue in a positive manner”.

A Pakistan government source said that the meeting between Modi and Sharif was so cordial that during their nearly 50-minute conversation, there was no “substantive mention” of either Jammu and Kashmir or terrorism.

In the run up to this visit, Modi and Sharif shook hands at a conference in the Russian city of Ufa in July and had a brief meeting in Paris at the start of this month.

He also stressed on the need of keeping Kashmir issue on top in the agenda for bilateral dialogues and said without resolution of Kashmir dispute in accordance with aspirations of Kashmiri people and United Nations resolution, no talks can succeed and dreams of restoration of peace and stability in the region could not be materialized.

He said the dialogue process is challenging as it involves hard decision and important issues.

The PPP leader, however, did not agree with the foreign secretary that Modi-Nawaz meeting was “sudden”.

“He’s personalized diplomacy to an extent we haven’t seen in India since (India’s first prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s”, she said.

In an earlier announcement, Aziz said that the meeting between the foreign secretaries of the two countries has been scheduled for the mid of next month.

“Modi wants to improve relations with the neighbours”.

After Modi landed in at the airport on way back to India from Afghanistan, the two leaders flew to Sharif’s palatial residence at Raiwind on the outskirts of Lahore in a helicopter, making it the first time that any leaders of the two countries travelled together.

He dispelled the impression that the staff of the Indian prime minister visited Lahore without any visa. The relationship and approach has been marked by everything other than consistency.