Washington, Dec 26

Prime Minister Narendra Modi\'s surprise stop in Pakistan to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif has made quite a splash here, with the US media hailing the significance of his \"spontaneous personal diplomacy\".

The Wall Street Journal said Modi\'s \"gesture\" was \"likely to lend momentum to a tentative reconciliation process between the estranged, nuclear-armed neighbours\".

The influential Washington Post said that with his surprise stop in Pakistan, Modi had \"pressed the reset button on the blow-hot-blow-cold relationship between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, paving the way for official dialogue to resume next month\".

The New York Times said the tense relations between India and Pakistan \"have long worried American policy makers, who fear that proxy wars between the two countries could flare into a real one\".

\"But with his flash of spontaneous personal diplomacy on Friday, Mr. Modi appeared to send a strong public message that the ambiguous course he has taken toward Pakistan has shifted to embrace engagement, not confrontation,\" it said.

With his surprise visit to Pakistan, Modi had \"breathed new life into a long troubled relationship\", said the Los Angeles Times.

Modi, it said citing analysts, \"appears willing to endure criticism from hard-liners within his own Bharatiya Janata Party who oppose outreach to Pakistan, which they accuse of harboring Islamist militant groups that have frequently attacked India\".

Noting that Modi \"showed a knack for wielding what can be a potent diplomatic weapon-the element of surprise\", Time magazine called his Friday visit to Pakistan as \"The biggest surprise of all\".

\"How the dialogue between the two countries now unfolds remains to be seen,\" it said noting that Modi\'s predecessor Manmohan Singh \"never made it across the border, with tensions between two countries rising in the aftermath of the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai\".

Meanwhile, the State Department said Modi\'s overture towards Pakistan would \"benefit the entire region\".

\"We welcome the December 25 talks between PM Modi and PM Sharif in Lahore. As we have long said, improved relations among neighbours will benefit the entire region,\" spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
Modi fourth Indian PM to visit Pakistan

Narendra Modi is the fourth Indian prime minister to visit Pakistan while 10 out of 14 Indian prime ministers have never been to Pakistan, a leading newspaper said on Saturday.

The other Indian prime ministers who have visited Pakistan are Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jang newspaper said.

Nehru, India\'s first prime minister, made two visits to Pakistan: in 1953 and 1960.

A full 28 years after Nehru\'s second visit, his grandson and prime minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Pakistan in 1988 to take part in the fourth SAARC conference. He made his second visit in 1989.

In 1999, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to Pakistan and inaugurated the Lahore-New Delhi bus service. He visited Islamabad in 2004 to participate in the 19th SAARC conference.

Modi\'s surprise visit on Friday comes 19 months after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif\'s flew to India and 11 years and 11 months and 20 days after Vajpayee\'s visit to Pakistan.

Jung said Modi was the only Indian prime minister to have visited the private residence of a Pakistani prime minister.

Modi halted in Lahore for about two hours on his way from Kabul and discussed bilateral issues with Sharif in an attempt to resume the stalled peace process between the two countries.

Modi\'s Pakistan visit praiseworthy: Samajwadi Party

Lucknow, Dec 26

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday got an open endorsement from the Samajwadi Party for his brief stop over in Pakistan.

Samajwadi Party\'s national general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav praised Modi\'s initiative, saying it was \"a praiseworthy gesture\".

Pakistan was India\'s immediate neighbour and hence cannot be wished away, Yadav told reporters in Saifai.

\"Open dialogues is the only way forward to a peaceful future,\" he said.

Modi \"has given all the right signals from this visit and has laid out the prospects of a meaningful dialogue in future\", the leader said.

Modi\'s Pakistan visit extraordinary: BJP

Prime Minister Narendra Modi\'s surprise visit to Pakistan has revived the peace process between the two nations and was done in an \"extraordinary\" manner, the BJP said on Saturday.

\"The party expresses its deep admiration for the prime minister for his courage, vision, imagination and skill in creating a transformative moment in the sub-continent,\" Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson M.J. Akbar told reporters at a press conference.

\"The peace process between the two nations has been revived and the manner in which the prime minister revived it is quite extraordinary,\" he added.

He said Modi\'s visit has created hope that there will be one happy consequence, and if all goes well, the prime minister will undertake a visit to Pakistan next year for the Saarc summit.

\"The extraordinary and positive public response to these developments tells it own story... democratic leaders understand the heartbeat of the public,\" he said.

Akbar, however, said a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations cannot be written by a single author but by two authors and who read from the same page.

\"We extend our warmest appreciation and applause for the prime minister\'s extraordinary initiative for his great vision not only for Indo-Pak relations but for all Saarc nations for his desire to see a comity of nations within the Saarc umbrella where leaders can call upon each other without abandoning formalities but with a degree also of unprecedented formality,\" he said.

Akbar said all have welcomed this development, except one or two political parties.

\"Pakistan\'s mainstream political parties have welcomed this. Foreign countries too have welcomed. Except one or two political parties of the country, all have welcomed it,\" he said.

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