'Breakfast and lunch at Amritsar in Lahore': Pak leader on Manmohan Singh's dream

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Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri recalled fond memories of his association with the late Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who died in Delhi on Thursday night.


In an interview with PTI in Lahore on Friday, Mr Kasuri said that Dr Singh will be remembered in history as a man who devoted himself to the improvement of bilateral relations between the two countries.


Mr Kasuri, 83, who served as Pakistan's foreign minister from November 2002 to November 2007, credited Singh for the creation of a congenial atmosphere in the entire SAARC region.


He said it was best exemplified by Mr Singh's statement that "he looked forward to the day when it would be possible to have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul".


Mr Kasuri said he was lucky to be a part of a process in which unprecedented progress was made during the peace negotiations between the two countries.


He said people-to-people contacts were enhanced tremendously during Mr Singh's tenure as prime minister resulting in the creation of mutual trust between the two governments.


Mr Kasuri said it even enabled them to produce a blueprint of a possible framework for the solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.


He said that although the process had begun during the period when Pakistan's then president Pervez Musharraf and India's Atal Bihari Vajpayee led the two respective governments, there is absolutely no doubt that Dr Manmohan Singh put his heart and soul into carrying the process forward.


Mr Kasuri recollected that Mr Singh expressed his strong desire to visit his birthplace Gah, in the Chakwal district of Punjab, Pakistan.


He said that he assured Mr Singh that he would be accorded a warm welcome in Pakistan.


Mr Kasuri hoped that one day it would be possible for the late prime minister's wife Gursharan Kaur and other members of his family to visit Mr Singh's birthplace.


Mr Kasuri also offered heartfelt condolences to his wife and other family members as well as the people of India.


Mr Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms, died in Delhi on Thursday night. He was 92. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News Agency staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)