Indian PM Modi arrives in Pakistan
Indian Premier Narendra Modi arrives on a visit to the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Friday amid tensions between the two neighbors.
Modi will meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to discuss a range of issues, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told state television.
“I can confirm that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is arriving in Lahore,” Khalilullah said, adding, “The details of the meeting are being worked out.”
State TV footage later showed Modi landing at Lahore Airport for an unannounced visit on Sharif's birthday.
The two premiers have had a stop-start diplomatic relationship since Modi’s invitation to Sharif for the former’s inauguration last May in the Indian capital, New Delhi.
The visit now would come almost two months after Sharif called for a fresh round of negotiations with neighboring India on a wide range of issues, notably the disputed region of Kashmir.
“Pakistan and India should live like good neighbors as they cannot be changed... They should resolve their problems accordingly,” Sharif told reporters in the capital, Islamabad, in late September.
Violence, including cross-border fire exchanges, has recently flared up between Indian and Pakistani troops along the disputed de facto border in Kashmir. The two sides have accused each other of provocation.
Pakistan and India have been engaged in hostility over Kashmir ever since their independence from British rule and their partition in 1947. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it. Pakistan controls one-third of Kashmir, with the remaining two-thirds under India’s control.
Islamabad and New Delhi agreed on a ceasefire in 2003, and launched a peace process the following year.
The process was, however, suspended after over 160 people lost their lives in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan has vehemently denied India’s claim.
Thousands of people have been killed in the unrest in Kashmir over the past two decades.
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