Pakistan and India relations take a step forward

Relations have warmed since Pakistan promised its neighbour most favoured nation trade status last year, although a $10 million bounty recently offered by Washington for a Pakistani Islamist blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai has stirred old grievances.

The leaders discussed Kashmir, theatre of two wars between India and Pakistan, as well as terrorism and trade during a 40-minute meeting on their own before sharing lunch, India’s foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai told reporters.

“We would like to have better relations with India. We have spoken on all topics that we could have spoken about and we are hoping to meet on Pakistani soil very soon,” Mr Zardari told a briefing as they emerged from Singh’s residence.

“Relations between India and Pakistan should become normal. That’s our common desire,” said Mr Singh. “We have a number of issues and we are willing to find tactical, pragmatic solutions to all those issues and that’s the message that president Zardari and I would wish to convey.”

Mr Zardari then headed to the shrine in western India of a revered Sufi Muslim saint seen as a symbol of harmony between South Asia’s often competing religions.

On his first visit to India as part of the 40-member delegation, Mr Zardari’s British-educated son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, stood behind the leaders, in a sign of his growing role in politics.

Mr Singh told Mr Zardari it was imperative to bring to justice the perpetrators of a 2008 attack on India’s financial capital, Mumbai – a three-day gun and bomb rampage by 10 Pakistani militants that left 166 dead and derailed the peace process. Talks only resumed last year.

The Indian prime minister raised the continued freedom of Hafiz Saeed, the Islamist suspected of masterminding the attack.

Saeed will be discussed again at a forthcoming meeting between home ministry officials, Mathai said.

India is furious Pakistan has not detained Saeed, despite handing over evidence against him. Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Friday that anyone with concrete proof to prosecute Saeed should present it to the courts.

Relaxed visa rules will be signed at the same meeting. Pakistan is expected to formally designate India as a most favoured nation later this year.

With Mr Zardari and Mr Singh both suffering major domestic problems, prospects are low for fixing the Kashmir stand-off.

Lasting Pakistan-India peace would go a long way to smoothing a perilous transition in Afghanistan as most NATO combat forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014.

India and Pakistan fought their most recent war in 1999, shortly after both sides declared they possessed nuclear weapons. Hundreds died on the defacto border in Kashmir before Pakistani troops and militants were forced to withdraw.

Born in a village in what is now Pakistan, Mr Singh has pushed for peace during his two terms in office, but his efforts were knocked off track by the 2008 fall of former president Pervez Musharraf, with whom he had built trust, and the Mumbai raids.

Informal meetings, during international cricket matches, or in this case before Mr Zardari’s pilgrimage to the Sufi shrine, have become the hallmark of Singh’s diplomacy.