The Pakistan foreign office has denied media reports that president Asif Ali Zardari intentionally dropped his plan to attend the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) summit in Egypt, where he was to meet Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.
A spokesman confirmed Pakistan’s delegation to the summit would be led by PM Yousuf Raza Gilani, saying Pakistan was a parliamentary democracy, just like India, and
there was nothing unusual in the prime minister representing his country at Nam.
He denied that Zardari’s plan to attend the summit was changed after the failure of his meeting with Manmohan on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Russia, where the Indian PM made some “rude” remarks.
Manmohan bluntly told Zardari before the media that his mandate was limited to telling Pakistan that it should not allow its soil to be used for terrorism against India. However, the foreign office spokesman insisted Pakistan was satisfied with the meeting, and hoped the process would move forward.
Not giving much importance to the Zardari slight, he highlighted that the two sides were talking again.
There is speculation about a meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan in Trieste later this month, followed by secretary-level meetings in July and finally, the most important one between Gilani and Singh in Egypt in the same month.
