ISLAMABAD: External affairs minister S Jaishankar had “casual conversations’’ with both Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif and his counterpart Ishaq Dar over the past 2 days even though there was no formal bilateral meeting between the foreign ministers on the margins of the SCO heads of government summit in Islamabad, diplomatic sources said. The fact that the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in almost 9 years went off without a hitch was seen as a positive development by the Indian government. As he departed after a 24-hour stay in Islamabad from the Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Jaishankar, who had said recently India isn’t passive on Pakistan and will react to positive and negative developments accordingly, thanked Shehbaz and Dar in a post on X for the hospitality and courtesies.
While Indian government sources described the talks as casual conversations, Pakistan officials said there was a brief pull aside, which lasted for 5 to 7 minutes, between Jaishankar and Dar on the sidelines of the dinner hosted by Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday evening. Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), is learnt to have joined Jaishankar and Dar. A source speaking on condition of anonymity said Pakistan suggested resumption of bilateral cricketing ties as a way of “breaking the ice”.
Naqvi was later quoted as saying that Jaishankar’s visit was an ice-breaker even though neither side proposed .
