New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will be heading to Pakistan for a multilateral conference on Afghanistan. During her visit, she will be meet Advisor to Pakistan Prime Minister Sartaj Aziz and will "focus on the resumption of composite dialogue process". She will call on Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and meet his Advisor on Foreign Affairs Aziz on the sidelines of the Afghan meet on Wednesday.
Swaraj's visit comes two days after talks between the National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan in Bangkok, where they discussed terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir and a range of key bilateral issues apart from agreeing to carry forward the "constructive" engagement.
A joint statement issued after the Bangkok meeting said Ajit Doval of India and Naseer Khan Janjua of Pakistan held discussions "in a candid, cordial and constructive atmosphere". "Discussions covered peace and security, terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir, and other issues including tranquility along the LoC (Line of Control)", the statement said.
Ahead of Sushma's visit, Aziz said the deadlock in Indo-Pak ties had eased to some extent. He said that various matters with focus on resumption of composite dialogue process between the two countries will be discussed in their meeting.
During her visit, Swaraj will be accompanied by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, who was also present during the four-hour-long meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Pakistani counterpart Naseer Janjua in the Thai capital.
Swaraj's visit comes three years after former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna travelled to Islamabad in 2012 when the countries also inked a visa liberalisation pact.
The meeting comes amid accusations by the Opposition on the Centre for a series of flip flops. India has claimed to have possessed incriminating evidence against Pakistan on state sponsored terror and said that had the NSAs not met in would have been no movement on the case
The Congress, referring to the NSAs meet, sought to know what made the government effect a "fundamental departure" from the position conveyed to Parliament with regard to engagement with Islamabad and asked it to take parliament into confidence.
"The Prime Minister and the government should inform the House about the developments and reasons which have made the government make a fundamental departure from the position as was conveyed to this house in the last session with regard to India's engagement with Pakistan," party leader Anand Sharma said in the Rajya Sabha during Zero Hour.
He also said that Sushma Swaraj's visit to Pakistan was "disrespect of Parliament as Parliament is not taken into confidence".
However, defending the government, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said a statement will be made by Swaraj on December 10.
Sunday's meeting of NSAs of the two countries in Bangkok followed the impromptu meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Paris on the sidelines of the Conference of Parties (CoP) 21 climate summit on November 30.
This was the first meeting between Modi and Sharif since they met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Russia's Ufa in July 2015.
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