Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Islamabad on December 8 to attend the Heart of Asia security conference being held there, top Government sources here confirmed. She will be accompanied by foreign secretary S Jaishankar.
This will be the first significant engagement between the two countries since the meeting between PM Narendra Modi and his counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa in July this year as she is expected to call on Sharif and also his adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz on the sidelines of the conference. Swaraj will return to India in the evening the next day, making her visit last not more than 24 hours.
Meanwhile, National Conference on Saturday hoped that the proposed visit of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Pakistan next week will help in improving relations, lead to resumption of dialogue process and resolution of all outstanding issues between the two countries.
National leaders Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, both former Chief Ministers of the state, welcomed the fact that Swaraj will be travelling to Pakistan, hoping that it will help reduce tensions between the two countries.
“We hope that Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Pakistan will improve the relations between the two countries and also in carrying forward the dialogue process so that all issues between them can be resolved,” Farooq told reporters here after paying tributes to his father and party’s founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on his 110th birth anniversary.
Farooq, who was commenting on media reports about Swaraj’s visit, also welcomed the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Paris last week.
“We do not know what they talked about but let us hope that they find some way of resolving this (Jammu and Kashmir) issue,” the NC leader said, addressing the party supporters at Sheikh’s mausoleum on the banks of Dal lake here.