External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held a meeting with Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs advisor to the Pakistan prime minister, on the sidelines of the Saarc ministerial meeting here on Thursday.During the meeting, Aziz handed over to Sushma Swaraj an invitation from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to attend the South Association Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan later this year.This was the first formal meeting between the two leaders after the January 2 cross-border terror attack on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot, Punjab, that claimed the lives of seven Indian security personnel.
The attack derailed the foreign secretary-level talks between the two south Asian neighbours scheduled for the middle of January after Aziz and Sushma Swaraj had in December last year agreed to start a comprehensive bilateral dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi.The two leaders arrived in Pokhara on Wednesday to attend the 37th meeting of the Saarc council of ministers which was held on Thursday.Earlier on Thursday, Sushma Swaraj and Aziz met for five minutes over breakfast here. Their first meeting was over dinner on Wednesday night.