Islamabad to Invite Prime Minister Modi to Saarc Summit, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Says | India News

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the summit of the Association for Regional Cooperation of South Asia (Saarc), said Tuesday the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs foreigners, Mohammad Faisal.

The 2016 Saarc Summit was to be held in Islamabad. But after a deadly terrorist attack on an Indian army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in September of the same year, India said it was unable to attend the summit because of "prevailing circumstances ".

The summit was canceled after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also refused to participate in the Islamabad meeting. Maldives and Sri Lanka are the seventh and eighth members of the initiative.

Speaking at a conference in Islamabad on Tuesday, Faisal recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan had declared in his victory speech that if India took a step forward, Pakistan would do two.

Prime Minister Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the Saarc Summit, Faisal reportedly told Dawn newspaper.

He stated that Prime Minister Khan, in a letter to his Indian counterpart, had expressed Pakistan's openness to resolving all outstanding issues through dialogue with India.

"We waged a war against India, relations can not be settled quickly," said Faisal.

The summits of the Saarc are usually organized every two years by a Member State in alphabetical order. The Member State hosting the Summit shall badume the presidency of the Association. The last Saarc summit of 2014 was held in Kathmandu, in the presence of Modi.

Faisal also said that the Kartarpur corridor, which will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Gurdara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan, is expected to be completed within six months.

"In this century, diplomacy has completely changed," he said, adding that policies are now based on the emotions and wishes of citizens.

Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located on the other side of the Ravi River, about four kilometers from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine, in the Gurdaspur district of Punjab. It was created by the Sikh Guru in 1522. The first Gurdara, Gurdara Kartarpur Sahib, was built there, where Guru Nanak Dev would have died.

India and Pakistan have decided to build a corridor linking Dera Baba Nanak, in Gurdaspur district, Punjab, Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur, Pakistan.