Their first stop will, the quaint Pokhara airport

The Nepali resort town of Pokhara on the first day of the SAARC inter-summit ministerial meeting on Monday. But whilehe weather played spoilsport, the parallel India-Pakistan saga came back into focus, with both sides confirming that their foreign ministers will sit down for a formal bilateral during their time at the multilateral event here. Pakistan’s foreign office announced in Islamabad on Monday afternoon that Sartaj Aziz, foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, will meet with all SAARC foreign ministers on the sidelines of the ministerial summit on March 17. The official reason was to extend a “formal invitation” to the eight South Asian leaders for the 19th SAARC summit to hosted by Islamabad in November. Official Indian sources said that after Pakistan sought a meeting between Aziz and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, India readily agreed. The agenda of the meeting would certainly go beyond the invitation, the sources admitted, with both sides expected to raise their pet issues It was Aziz and Swaraj’s meeting in Islamabad during the Heart of Asia conference last December which began the process for both countries to re-engage formally in a dialogue process. Of course, that meeting too was a direct result of the elaborate shadow play between the two governments which began with the ‘chance encounter’ between Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif at the leaders’ lounge during the Paris climate change talks on November 30, which was then followed by discussions in Bangkok between the national security advisers of the two countries on December 6. As of now, however, the Indian and Pakistan foreign secretaries are not likely to hold a separate meeting of their own on the sidelines at Pokhara – mainly because there is too much political baggage riding on their much postponed discussions. As per New Delhi’s stance, the foreign secretaries will only meet to decide on the calendar for the launch of a new ‘comprehensive bilateral dialogue’ after Pakistan is seen to have taken visible action to hunt down the perpetrators of the January 2 Pathankot Air base attack which left 7 soldiers dead. A visit of the Special Investigation Team from Pakistan might well provide the Modi government the cover it needs to ward off the opposition charge of not doing enough to press Islamabad to act – and, therefore, continue with the dialogue process. “We are very clear on the sequence of events. First the SIT visit has to take place and only then can the foreign secretaries meet,” said a senior government official. With the terror track now being dealt with by the NSAs, a meeting between the foreign secretaries with the baggage of Pathankot would have led to a blurring of its mandate as envisioned by the Indian side.