Pakistan foreign minister Qureshi writes to external affairs minister Jaishankar, advocates talks

Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has written a letter to S Jaishankar congratulating him on his appointment as the external affairs minister of India. Jaishankar took charge last Friday and was the former foreign secretary.

In the letter, Qureshi advocated talks between the two countries. India and Pakistan ties have been frayed since the Pulwama terror attack which took place on February, 14th, whose responsibility was claimed by Pakistan-based United Nations listed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM).

This comes in the backdrop of the visit of Pakistani foreign secretary Sohail Mahmood to India on Eid, during which he offered Namaz at Delhi's historic Jama Masjid. MEA has clarified that his visit was a "personal visit and there was no meeting scheduled" between the Pakistan foreign secretary and Indian officials.

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Meanwhile, the ministry of external affairs has dismissed reports of any meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on the sidelines of Shanghai cooperation organization(SCO) next week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

MEA's spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, in response to WION's question at the first weekly MEA presser of the new government, said, "To the best of my knowledge no meeting has been planned between PM Modi and Pakistan PM Imran Khan at the SCO Summit in Bishkek."

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had called PM Modi to congratulate after his victory in the general elections. During the call, PM Modi had asked the Pak prime minister to create an environment free of terror.