India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday for his return to the premiership, a uncommon expression of goodwill between leaders of the 2 nuclear-armed rivals.
Sharif was formally sworn in Monday as prime minister for a second time after a ballot marred by claims of widespread vote rigging.
The 72-year-old’s army-backed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-L) has shaped a coalition authorities with their historic rival the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and several other smaller factions that shuts out loyalists of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, who gained probably the most seats.
“Congratulations to @CMShehbaz on being sworn in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” Modi mentioned in a put up on social media platform X.
India and Pakistan are bitter adversaries with longstanding political tensions.
The two nations have fought three wars and quite a few smaller skirmishes since being carved out of the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.
But Sharif is seen in India as extra conciliatory towards New Delhi than his predecessor Khan.
Unusually for a senior Pakistani politician, Sharif visited India in 2013 when he was chief minister of Pakistan’s influential Punjab province.
He visited his household’s ancestral village on the Indian aspect of the frontier and met with then-prime minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, together with different officers.
Modi additionally attended a Sharif household wedding ceremony throughout a shock journey to Pakistan in 2015, a yr after the Hindu nationalist chief took workplace.
He was hosted by Sharif’s elder brother Nawaz, himself prime minister on the time.
Hindu nationalist sentiment has risen in India underneath Modi, a populist chief looking for a 3rd time period in workplace normally elections anticipated from April.
The two nations downgraded their diplomatic ties throughout Khan’s premiership in 2019 after a dispute over India’s try to entrench its grip over the a part of Kashmir it controls.
The Himalayan area, residence to a long-running and lethal insurgency towards Indian rule, is split between the 2 nations and claimed by each in full.
Source: www.anews.com.tr