Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday called for a clampdown on terrorist groups, while offering closer trade relations in talks with his Pakistani counterpart in an action-packed first full day in office for the Hindu nationalist.
Modi, who was sworn in on Monday after a landslide victory earlier this month, also announced a leaner team of ministers who pledged to work to fire up the slowing economy as he promised during his campaign.
Modi’s meeting with Pakistani Prime Minsiter Nawaz Sharif and other South Asian leaders invited to his inauguration was the first foreign policy test for the 63-year-old, who has no prior diplomatic experience.
Photo: EPA
He stuck broadly to the previous government’s position, calling for action on anti-India militant groups in Pakistan and expressing hopes that trade could bring the nuclear-armed rivals together.
“We want peaceful and friendly relations with Pakistan. However, for such relations to proceed, it is important that terror and violence is brought to an end,” Indian Secretary of Foreign Affairs Sujatha Singh said in a statement. “There was discussion on trade and we noted that we were fully ready to fully normalize trade and economic relations.”
Sharif hailed the meeting as an “historic opportunity” for Pakistan-India ties and said the talks had been “warm and cordial.”
It was the first time an Indian prime minister has hosted a Pakistani leader for talks in New Delhi since the rupture in relations that followed 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people and were blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The talks came hours after Modi announced his Cabinet, with Sushma Swaraj — the most senior woman in his Bharatiya Janata Party — named foreign minister, while 61-year-old lawyer Arun Jaitley was given the crucial finance and defense portfolios, and party president Rajnath Singh was made the new home affairs minister.
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