Nawaz Sharif invites Manmohan Singh to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: Nawaz Sharif, who is set to be Pakistan’s prime minister for a third time, on Monday said his government would have friendly relations with India and said he would invite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to his oath-taking ceremony here.


In New Delhi, an external affairs ministry source said that India will wait for a formal invitation before responding. “We have also learnt this from media reports. But we can examine the proposal once we receive a formal invitation,” the source said.

Manmohan Singh had on Sunday expressed New Delhi’s desire to work with the new government. He also invited Sharif to visit India after the PML-N’s win in the historic election, which saw the transition from one civilian government to another for the first time in 65 years.

An upbeat Sharif – whose victory in the elections saw the Karachi Stock Exchange-100 index zoom and breach a record – told foreign correspondents in his palatial residence in Raiwind, outside Lahore, that his government would establish friendly ties with India. He said all outstanding issues between the two should be resolved through dialogue.

Terming economy and energy as top priorities, he said his party will try to form a strong government to overcome problems facing the country. Riding on hopes of peace and stability, the KSE based in Pakistan’s commercial hub Karachi gained some 300 points, breaking the KSE-100 index record of 20,000 points, as investors hailed the outcome of the May 11 polls, reported Geo News.

Unofficial results show that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has emerged the single largest party in the National Assembly with cricketer-turnedpolitician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) standing second and the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) relegated to the third spot.