UNITED NATIONS : External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan’s National Security and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz are expected to meet at two multilateral fora on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week.
Swaraj, who will arrive in New York tomorrow, will participate in the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers meeting and the SAARC Foreign Ministers meeting on September 25.
“There is a meeting of SAARC Foreign Ministers which is scheduled and I am sure our External Affairs Minister will meet” Aziz in the meeting, India’s Ambassador to the UN Asoke Mukerji told PTI in response to a question about the possibility of a meeting between them.
Mukerji said the “second opportunity” for the two leaders to meet would be the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers meeting.
“India and Pakistan are both members of the Commonwealth. So the two Ministers will be meeting in that format as well,” he said.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be in New York to address the General Assembly but a meeting between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely.
Swaraj had last met Aziz on September 12 at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Dushanbe where the two had exchanged pleasantries during a break at the summit.
India and Pakistan have been involved in a war of words after New Delhi cancelled a Foreign Secretary-level meeting last month after Pakistan’s envoy in India met Kashmiri separatists ahead of the talks.
Swaraj has a “very full schedule” of bilateral and multilateral meetings in New York.
She would also attend a commemorative event in the UN on October 2 that is celebrated as the ‘International Day of Non-Violence” on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary. (PTI)
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