External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Friday said that he looks forward to the visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf as he will be offering prayers at the Sufi Shrine of Ajmer Sharif, which gives out the message of peace.
“For me, it””s another day. Lunches and dinners are a part of the life of a Foreign Minister. I meet someone today, I meet someone tomorrow and the life goes on,” he said, when asked to comment on the Pakistani Prime Minister””s visit.
Khurshid further said any one who comes with a message of peace in a place of peace should be received with peace.
“It is a private visit. A spiritual visit to a place, which gives out the message of peace; Dargah Sharif gives out a message of peace. And I think anyone comes with a message of peace in a place of peace, we should receive them with peace,” said Khurshid.
“And I think this is the message that we get from the Dargah. This is a private visit and I know nothing more other than the fact that this is a private visit,” he added.
Khurshid, who has ruled out any diplomatic talks with the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister, earlier today said that he would be receiving the visiting dignitary on his private visit to Ajmer Sharif tomorrow as a courtesy.
The dargah dewan of Ajmer shrine, Syed Zainul Abedin Ali Khan, earlier in the day said that he was opposed to the visit by the Pakistani Prime Minister in the wake of the January 2013 beheading of two Indian soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
Khan said that he would boycott the Pakistani Prime Minister””s visit on Saturday.
“I will not welcome or be present during his visit to the Dargah. The inhuman manner in which Indian soldiers were treated by the Pakistan Army is despicable and condemned it in the strongest of words. It will be a dishonour to the families of the Indian soldiers who were beheaded by their (Pakistan) army,” Khan told media in Ajmer.
“I don””t know his intention of coming here. What message does he want to deliver. But he is coming with a pure heart to preach, then he should have brought the heads of the soldier and should have given to the Indian Prime Minister so that the mothers who did not see the faces of their children even at the time of the funeral, would have got to see their faces,” he added.
The Dargah Dewan of Ajmer shrine further said he has not done the paper work to organize passes for his family.
The Pakistani Prime Minister will be visiting India on a private visit on a day-long pilgrimage to the Sufi Shrine of Ajmer Sharif.
Ashraf, who will not touch down in New Delhi, will not have any substantive discussions with the Indian side.
The dialogue process between the two Asian neighbours was impacted by ceasefire violations on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir in January this year with India lodging a strong protest over the brutal killing of two of its soldiers in the Poonch sector.
Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh were killed by infiltrating Pakistani soldiers in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir on January 8.
Their bodies were found mutilated, sparking a diplomatic face-off between India and Pakistan and tension along the Line of Control that separates the two countries.
Pakistan had denied India””s claim that its troops crossed the Line of Control to ambush a patrol party in the Mendhar sector in Poonch district. (ANI)