India desperate for Imran-Modi handshake

ISLAMABAD: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might go for a handshake with Prime Minister Imran Khan in Riyadh on October 29.

Modi will be under one roof with Prime Minister Imran for two days to attend the International Conference on Economics and Business Research (ICEBR). The conference is viewed as a prestigious event organised to provide an excellent international platform for academicians, researchers, engineers, industrial participants and budding students around the world to share their research findings with the global experts.

Imran and Modi both have consented to attend the ICEBR. Diplomatic sources told The News on Monday that India was desperate for a meeting between the two prime ministers if not in Riyadh then the next month when the two will be at the Punjab’s border to inaugurate Kartarpur Sahib Corridor.

Some important capitals are also hectically engaged in bringing the two premiers together at the earliest but Pakistan has reservations in this regard.

The sources said Pakistan understood the keenness of Indian government for a meeting to give a false impression to the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) that the Pakistani leadership had no issue with the Indians.

For this very reason, Pakistan wouldn’t agree to such a gesture as long India doesn’t ease up restrictions in the IOK including end to the lockdown and withdrawal of unprecedented curfew in the whole area.

The sources disclosed that New Delhi was willing to facilitate the holding of the deferred Saarc summit in Pakistan that was scuttled by India in 2016 when it was slated to be held in Islamabad in November that year.