Swaraj, Aziz engage in 'social chitchat' at SAARC dinner

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz were today seen engaged in an animated discussion over a dinner here hosted for the ministers of SAARC countries.

Though details of their discussion was not known, Indian officials described it as a “social chitchat” between the ministers who were seated alongside.

The two ministers are also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting here tomorrow which was sought by Aziz to extend the invitation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the SAARC summit, to be hosted by Pakistan later this year.

This is the second time the two ministers are meeting since December last when Swaraj had travelled to Islamabad for a multilateral meeting and had also held extensive bilateral talks with Aziz after which both countries announced resumption of the comprehensive bilateral dialogue.

During tomorrow’s meeting, Swaraj is expected to nudge Pakistan to take action against the perpetrators of the Pathankot airbase attack, which came days after Prime Minister Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore on December 25 last year to attend the 66th birthday of his counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Choudhry were also seen sitting together at another table during the dinner hosted by SAARC Secretary General Arjun Bahadur Thapa.