Pakistan President Pevez Musharraf is expected to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit to be held in New Delhi early next year.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will invite Musharraf for the summit during his visit to Islamabad on January 13. Musharraf is executive president of SAARC, Indian officials said in Islamabad.
Musharraf attended the SAARC summit in 2002 at Kathmandu where he grabbed headlines with his famous handshake with then Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee in a bid to reduce the mounting tensions between the two sides in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.
The 2004 SAARC summit in Islamabad was attended by former Pakistan prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and the Dhaka summit by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
The Indian invitation will provide a second opportunity for Musharraf to visit New Delhi in as many years. He had a highly publicised visit to the Indian capital in April 2005 to watch an India-Pakistan cricket match, during which he had extensive interaction with the prime minister, media and civil society.
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