Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will pay a two-day visit to India later this week at the invitation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during which the two will watch the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final match at Mohali, near Chandigarh, on Wednes-day.
As members of the Indian and Pakistani cricket teams went through net practice and fitness drills at Mohali on Sunday came the news that Mr Gilani had accepted Dr Singh’s offer following a late Saturday night meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad.
With the relationship between the neighbours on an upswing after the low of the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, President Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said on Sunday: “It was decided in response to the Indian Prime Minister’s invitation that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will visit India to witness the semi-final cricket match.”
Dr Singh had sent virtually identical communications to Mr Zardari and Mr Gilani, inviting both of them to join him at the Mohali cricket stadium on Wednesday for the semi-final clash.
In his note sent two days ago to Mr Gilani, Dr Singh said: “I propose to be at Mohali to watch the World Cup semi-final match between India and Pakistan to be held on 30th March. There is huge excitement over the match and we are all looking forward to a great game of cricket, that will be a victory for sport. It gives me great pleasure to invite you and your gracious wife to visit Mohali and join me, my wife and the millions of fans from our two countries to watch the match.”
There is no news at the Punjab Cricket Association itself about the details of what is now effectively an official visit. The Punjab and Chandigarh police forces, which have already deployed 3,000 personnel for security duties, will now ramp up their vigil still further.
It is somewhat off the mark to call this cricket “diplomacy” since three previous such initiatives have not altered India-Pakistan relations to any great
extent, but Dr Singh’s initiative assumes significance in the light of a growing cross-border outreach over the past
few weeks.
In 1987, then Pakistan President Zia-ul Haq attended a day’s play during an India-Pakistan Test match in Jaipur at the invitation of Rajiv Gandhi. In 2005, Pervez Musharraf watched his national side hammer India at the Ferozeshah Kotla in New Delhi in a one-dayer after being invited by Dr Singh, though the Indian PM turned down an ice-breaking effort two years ago.
The Singh-Gilani meeting on the sidelines of the cricket match will follow the home secretary-level talks between the two countries, which will begin on Monday in Delhi.
Pakistan’s interior secretary Chaudhry Qamar Zaman, leading a six-member delegation for the two-day talks with home secretary G.K. Pillai, told journalists after
crossing over into India from the Attari border post in Amritsar that he hoped of make some progress on easing visa regimes.
“We will be talking to our counterparts (on) how to make travel easier for the common man. One of the issues we intend to discuss is the visa issue between the two countries and how to make it easier and faster so that the common man gets the benefit out of it,” Mr Zaman said.