Singh, Zardari to meet tomorrow, first since 26/11

Prime minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari will meet here on Tuesday, the first top-level contact since the 26/11 attacks which stalled the composite dialogue process.

Singh and Zardari, who will be in this Russian city for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, will have a brief interaction during which they are expected to talk about bilateral ties and the way forward.

This will be the first high-level contact between the two countries since the Mumbai attacks as India has suspended dialogue till Pakistan takes "concrete" action against those behind the strikes and dismantles the terror infrastructure.

The meeting between Singh and Zardari, though informal with no structured agenda, may lead to resumption of bilateral dialogue at some level if the two leaders agree to it.

Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the meeting will have a "salutary impact" on bilateral ties.

"It is a welcome development and will have a salutary impact," Pakistan's official APP news agency quoted him as saying here. "The two leaders will have a one-on-one meeting," he said but refused to "prejudge the outcome".

The two leaders last met in September 2008 on the sidelines of UN General Assembly in New York.

Earlier, Singh had said "there is no other alternative but to pursue the path of dialogue... It is in our vital interest to try again to make peace with Pakistan but it takes two hands to clap."