Indian and Pakistani leaders reportedly met here on Tuesday and decided to hold a bilateral summit in Egypt sometime next month, according to officials. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari held talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The meeting lasted for 40 minutes approximately Both the leaders agreed that the foreign secretaries of both the countries will meet soon for the reinstatement of the comprehensive dialogues between the two countries. “The issue they will discuss is primarily terrorism,” an official told a news agency from Yekaterinburg in Russia. The two South Asian leaders are due to hold a rare bilateral meeting their first since ties went into deep freeze following attacks in Mumbai last November. New Delhi had put on hold a five-year-old peace process, saying Pakistan must act decisively against the Lashkar-e-Taiba militants that India holds responsible for the Mumbai attacks. Islamabad says it has detained some militants, but needs more evidence from New Delhi for further action. “I am happy to meet you but my mandate is to announce that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism,” Singh told Zardari after shaking his hand, in comments translated into Russian. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi downplayed Singh's reported remark and said the meeting itself was a positive development, the reports said. “I think the very fact that the two leaders are meeting at this summit for the first time since the tragic incident in Mumbai is positive,” he said.
