Akhir 25, 1432 H/March 30, 2011, SPA -- The prime ministers of India and Pakistan pledged to normalize bilateral ties Wednesday as they attended a cricket World Cup semi-final between their countries, according to dpa. With the South Asian rivals coming face to face on the pitch for the first time since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, cricket mania gripped millions of fans across the subcontinent. Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours hit a low after Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militants attacked India's financial hub, killing 166 people. Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh watched the game, dubbed the "mother of all matches," at the cricket ground in Mohali, a suburb of India's north-western Chandigarh city. The two leaders held "wide-ranging" discussions on a number of bilateral issues on the sidelines of the match, following which Gilani invited Singh to Pakistan, India's foreign secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters. "Indeed, the meeting of our two leaders in Mohali today has once again reaffirmed the intention of both governments to take forward the process of dialogue," Rao said. "Because dialogue is a process through which we can understand each other better, through which we can resolve outstanding issues and the goal of this dialogue is normalization of relations," she added. Rao said the discussions, which continued over a post-match dinner, focused on development, economic growth, trade, access to technology, health, education and issues that "concern the future of people in both these countries." Gilani's visit, the first by a Pakistani premier since the Mumbai attacks, came upon an invitation by Singh after both teams qualified for the cricket tournament's final four.
