India invites Pakistan Commerce Minister Pervaiz Malik for WTO talks in Delhi: Report

In a significant development, India has reportedly invited Pakistan to participate in the informal WTO ministerial meeting taking place in Delhi on March 19-20. 

Pakistan's Commerce Minister Pervaiz Malik has confirmed his attendance, the Indian Express reported. 

Malik will meet his host, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, but it is not yet clear yet if he will have meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, the report said. 

India is organising a mini-ministerial meeting on March 19 and 20 and has invited representatives from several countries to discuss, debate on reforms needed in the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO). 

Ministers from the US, European Union, Australia, China, New Zealand and several African countries are likely to be in the attendance. 

The invitation to Malik was extended after the back-channel negotiations between the two national security advisors - Ajit Doval and Nasser Janjua - in late-December. 

The national security advisors of India and Pakistan held a “secret” meeting in Thailand on December 27. 

The meeting came after Indian death-row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav met with his family on December 25 in Islamabad.

Besides terrorism, Jadhav has become another flashpoint in India-Pak relations in recent times. Jadhav, who was captured in March last year, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying, an accusation that India has dismissed as concocted.

New Delhi says Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran where he had legitimate business interests, and brought to Pakistan. To save Jadhav, India moved the International Court of Justice, which ordered Pakistan in May to stay his execution.

Sartaj Aziz, then foreign affairs advisor, was the last Pakistani leader to visit India in December 2016 for the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan in Amritsar.

(With PTI inputs)