Nawaz Sharif, Modi had 'secret' meeting during Saarc 2014, claims Indian media
In front of cameras, there was a quick handshake between the two leaders at Saarc summit a year ago.
NEW DELHI (Web Desk) - Away from TV cameras, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi held an hour-long secret meeting on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Kathmandu last year, the Hindustan Times reported on Tuesday.
The paper claimed that “both the leaders shared their constraints while agreeing they needed more time and greater political space to move forward with public engagements.”
The meeting was facilitated by Indian steel magnate Sajjan Jindal, who is the brother of former Congress MP Naveen Jindal.
These revelations were made by TV journalist Barkha Dutt in her debut book, This Unquiet Land — Stories from India’s Fault Lines. The book will hit the stores on Wednesday.
Secretly, both Modi and Sharif had found someone to “keep them connected even when things got difficult”, Dutt writes, describing Jindal as an informal messenger serving as a “covert bridge” between the two leaders.
Dunya News - Nawaz, Modi shake hands to big... by dunyanews
During their first meeting when Nawaz Sharif visited to Delhi for Modi’s oath taking ceremony, the two PMs decided to keep the reins of the relationship in their hands.
“However, they agreed that it could be useful to talk informally through a mutual acquaintance they both felt comfortable with.”
The acquaintance was Jindal, who hosted a tea party for Sharif after his meeting with Modi in Delhi. When Dutt went to meet Nawaz Sharif at the Capital’s Taj Mansingh hotel, she saw Jindal escort Sharif’s son Hussain for lunch.
The proximity was at play in Kathmandu, where the Saarc summit was held on November 26 and 27. Modi called up Jindal from Nepal and asked him to take the earliest flight to the Nepali capital.
Dutt asserts that “Jindal was asked to discreetly reach out to his ‘friend‘ across the border”. The two leaders then met quietly “in the privacy of Jindal hotel room”, where they spent an hour together.
These revelations come a day after meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Summit on Monday which drew both attention and speculation. Some viewed it as a chance meeting while others expected the conversation to ease existing tensions.
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Modi and Nawaz held informal brief chat in Paris on Monday.
The meeting took place when Modi went to the lounge for visiting leaders and found Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sitting there.
Noticing Sharif, Modi walked up to him and both warmly shook hands and sat next to each other and chatted briefly. No official delegates were present during the meeting.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Vikas Swarup, said that there was only exchange of courtesies the Pakistani side reported that an informal brief chat was held in a ‘friendly atmosphere’.
The two leaders last met on July 10 on the sidelines of SCO Summit in the Russian city of Ufa during which they had agreed on the need for a meeting between their national security advisers for discussing terrorism-related threats. But the meeting could not take place because of agenda-linked differences.
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Sharif and Modi were together in New York during the UN General Assembly session in September, but only waved at each other and exchanged smiles.
Ties between the two countries have remained largely tense since Prime Minister Modi came to power in May 2014.
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