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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will visit India to watch the World Cup cricket semi-final between the arch-rival nations, presidential spokesman Faharullah Babar said Sunday.
In a move hailed as “cricket diplomacy”, he said the decision was taken at a meeting, said to have lasted two hours, between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad late Saturday.
“It was decided in response to the Indian Prime Minister's invitation that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will visit India to witness the semi-final cricket match,” Babar said in a statement Sunday.
India's prime minister Manmohan Singh on Friday invited Pakistan's president and prime minister to watch the semi-final which is to be played in Mohali in northern India on Wednesday.
Analysts said Singh's invitation was aimed at improving the environment for talks between the two countries on a number of troublesome issues.
“These kinds of visits do not suggest instant solution to the problems but break the stalemate, help improve the environment which facilitate talks,” leading analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.
The development comes as relations between the neighbours remain tense following the attack by militants on Mumbai in 2008 that left 166 people dead.
However, the two countries' top officials are due to hold talks on counter-terrorism in Delhi this week.
“The diplomats will now be more relaxed in their dialogue but as the issues are complex, their solution will take time,” Askari said.
“This development also shows that India is now really interested in resuming dialogue on all contentious issues.”
The foreign diplomats based in Islamabad, earlier felt that declining the invitation would be a serious mistake and a snub for Dr Singh as he had made normalisation of ties with Pakistan his personal priority.
