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 Modi accepted the invitation to attend a 2016 meeting of South
Asian leaders in Islamabad during talks with Pakistani Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif on the margins of a security summit in Russia,
foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said.
Experts warned the trip could yet fall through, but if Modi goes, it
would be the first time an Indian leader has visited the country
since Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004.
The move demonstrates a readiness to engage with India's longtime
rival despite the hawkish stance Modi's government has often taken.
The leaders also agreed on Friday to work together to rein in
regional militancy, scheduling rare meetings between national
security advisers and heads of border security, as well as helping
expedite the trial of those charged with the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
Modi and Sharif shook hands for about 15 seconds, smiling, before
sitting down for talks.
"The very fact that they've met is good," said Ayaz Amir, a
political analyst and former lawmaker in Pakistan. "If they perhaps
agreed to try to tone down the extremist rhetoric coming from both
sides, that would be even better."
Modi's government has adopted a tough posture on Pakistan, insisting
that it show greater progress in prosecuting members of the
Pakistan-based group charged with carrying out the Mumbai attacks in
which 166 people were killed.
In April, when a Pakistani court freed on bail Zaki-ur-Rehman
Lakhvi, accused of plotting the attacks, the move drew swift
condemnation from India, which warned that relations were
deteriorating.
Clashes on the border in disputed Kashmir have also intensified
during Modi's first year in office. On the eve of Friday's talks, an
Indian border guard was shot dead by a Pakistani sniper in northern
Kashmir, Indian officials said.
Sharif was elected in Pakistan in 2013 on the back of promises to
rebuild relations with India, but has come under pressure to toughen
his stance from hardliners at home, particularly within the army.
CORE ISSUE
Islamabad has long said that Kashmir remains the core dispute with
India, and wants New Delhi to hold talks to resolve the row before
moving forward on other issues such as trade.
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The neighbors have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two
of them over Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Friday's was the first meeting between the prime ministers in over
seven months, when they shared a handshake and a few words at a
South Asia summit in Nepal in November.
Their last formal talks were in May, 2014, after Sharif attended
Modi's inauguration in New Delhi, a first for a Pakistani leader.
During that meeting, the newly anointed Indian prime minister issued
a stern warning that Islamabad must stop militants from attacking
India.
Friday's raft of announcements, made during a joint briefing by
Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart after the bilateral
meeting, were welcomed by Modi's colleagues in New Delhi.
They also took some sectors of India's political establishment by
surprise.
Most had predicted dialogue would resume, but few expected concrete
action, said Neelam Deo, director of the Mumbai-based thinktank
Gateway House.
"It signals from both sides a willingness to get down to the real
issues," she said.
But both Deo and Amir, the Pakistani analyst, cautioned that people
should not pin hopes on Modi's possible visit to Pakistan.
"It's a year away," Deo said. "If things go really badly, (he) can
say, 'Sorry.'"
The two sides announced they would release fishermen held in each
other's custody within 15 days as a goodwill gesture. Scores of
fishermen stray across the waters of the Arabian Sea each year and
end up in jails, some for years.
(Writing and additional reporting by Krista Mahr in New Delhi,; Kay
Johnson and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Lidia Kelly in Ufa;
Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Mike Collett-White)
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