Pakistan’s Zardari to meet Indian PM in New Delhi

ISLAMABAD (Reuters): President Asif Ali Zardari will meet with India’s prime minister during the first visit to India by a Pakistani head of state since 2005, his spokesman said, with relations between the nuclear-armed rivals at their warmest in years.

Spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement that Zardari accepted a lunch invitation from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The pair will meet in the Indian capital, New Delhi, on Sunday.

Zardari is also expected to visit a shrine to a revered Sufi saint in the Indian city of Ajmer during the one-day visit. Indian media have quoted government sources there as saying they hoped there would be formal talks.

Lasting Pakistan-India peace is seen as vital to South Asian stability and to smoothing a dangerous transition in Afghanistan as most NATO combat forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.

The atmosphere between the two has improved after a flurry of high-level meetings and Pakistan’s recent promise to award its neighbour most favoured nation trade status. In November, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Singh met in the Maldives and promised to open a new chapter in their troubled history.

Distrust, border clashes and militant attacks have destabilised the region since the two nations were carved out of colonial India in 1947, with the disputed region of Kashmir at the heart of tensions.

They fought three all-out wars since independence from the British and their border still bristles with soldiers.