NEW DELHI: Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari will be accompanied by interior minister Rehman Malik during his day-long visit to India on Sunday, government sources confirmed.
Zardari will be accompanied by a 40-member delegation, comprising mostly his family members and his presidential staff.As of now, Malik is the only minister likely to accompany Zardari, who will have lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at 7 RCR before leaving for Ajmer to pay obeisance at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti. The lunch will be preceded by a brief meeting between the two leaders.
Zardari will leave for Jaipur immediately after lunch from where he will depart for Ajmer. “We are still in discussion. There are still four days remaining, and a lot can still happen”, they said when asked if home minister P Chidambaram will be part of the PM’s delegation since Malik would be accompanying the President.Sources insisted that it was a “private visit” of Zardari, and India had conveyed that if it was convenient, the PM would host a lunch for him here.
On the agenda of the meeting, the sources said, “All issues of interest will be raised … The lunch is preceded by a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Zardari,” but refused to give any details of matters that are likely to figure. PM and Zardari had last met in 2009 on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Russia. – TOI
