New Delhi, April 30: At a meeting without aides, Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani invited his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to visit Islamabad and Dr. Singh said he would look forward to visiting the country, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told journalists here on Thursday.
Mr. Qureshi described Dr. Singh as a visionary and academic. He said the Indian Prime Minister had his heart in the right place and he was a well-meaning person. “He is a well-meaning man. He is an academic. He is a visionary. He wants to move on.”
Mr. Qureshi also described the meeting between the two Prime Ministers as having taken place in a “positive spirit.”
Informed sources said the Prime Ministers met formally with about 10 aides on each side. They then decided to confer without officials and dispensed with the services of note-takers.
After nearly 70 minutes of one-to-one interaction, senior officials were summoned and a round-up of the discussions held earlier by the Prime Ministers took place for about 20 minutes.
The sources said that while the issues of sending Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks, and India’s alleged involvement in Baluchistan were not raised during the meeting attended by officials, they could not say if the Prime Ministers spoke about it during their talks.
—-Agencies