Delhi meet-up: Will it be more than just a courtesy call?

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s meeting with Narendra Modi on May 27 will be more than a courtesy call, which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials are – surprisingly – not resisting. On Friday, S Akbaruddin, the spokesperson for India’s external affairs ministry, was quite cut and dry about Nawaz’s visit: “It is normal practice that when a senior leader comes to your country as a gracious host you also have short meetings as courtesy and as a gesture to the incoming guest.” But BJP officials maintain that the meetup will be more than just a courtesy call, extending over half an hour. The party is also aware that the bilateral talks could touch a raw nerve in its core constituency, and has taken to insisting that Modi’s bilateral talks with Nawaz and others would be more in the spirit of familiarisation meetings than something with any substantive diplomatic agenda. BJP leader Arun Jaitley tweeted that courtesy calls should not be treated as diplomatic meetings.