No plans of PM Modi holding bilateral meet with Pak PM Abbasi at Davos: MEA
Secretary at the External Affairs Ministry, Vijay Gokhale said the prime minister’s visit to Davos would be a 24-hour visit “but a very focused one”.
There are no “plans” of a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting at Davos next week, the external affairs ministry said on Friday.
The annual meet of the WEF would be beginning on January 22. Modi would address the opening plenary on January 23.
There will not be any meeting between Modi and the US President Donald Trump either.
“As far as I am concerned there are no plans for meeting with the Pakistan Prime Minister,” Secretary (Economic Relations) at the External Affairs Ministry Vijay Gokhale said.
When asked whether Modi would be meeting US President Donald Trump, Gokhale said the two leaders will not be there on the same day.
This would be Modi’s first visit to Davos and the last Indian Prime Minister to attend the WEF was H D Deve Gowda in 1997. In case of Trump, he would be the first US President to attend since Bill Clinton in 2000.
To a question on whether Modi is sending a message by not meeting Trump at the event, which has the theme of ‘Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World’, Gokhale said there were never any plans for the two leaders to meet.
Announcing details of Modi’s visit to the Swiss resort for the World Economic Forum (WEF), Secretary (Economic Relations) in the External Affairs Ministry, Vijay Gokhale said, “it will be a 24 hour visit but a very focused one”.
“Our economy has expanded significantly since the last time an Indian prime minister went to Davos and therefore this visit is very important,” Gokhale said.
“In addition to the keynote address, Modi will also have bilateral meeting with Swiss President Alain Berset. Besides, there will be scope for pull asides, details of which are being worked out,” he said.
This will be a very significant visit and will give a message about our engagements with the world, he said.
The focus will be on prime minister’s vision about India’s economy’s at the domestic as well as global level.