There is nothing “out of the ordinary” if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif waved at each other, said Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup.
“The Prime Minister greatly values his relationship with Prime Minister Sharif and if they have waved at each other I don’t see anything out of the ordinary in that,” he said when asked about the two leaders waving at each other at the peacekeeping summit.
Minutes before the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping was about to begin in New York on Tuesday, Sharif waved at Modi, who on seeing the Pakistani Prime Minister waving at him, smiled back and responded with a wave. After a brief pause, Modi waved again to Sharif, who smiled back and nodded.
On Sharif raising the issue of Kashmir in his meeting with UN <g data-gr-id="12">Secretary General</g> Ban Ki-moon, Swarup said what he (Sharif) says formally on the floor of the General Assembly, “if we find that yes it is something that we need to respond to, we will respond to it.”
He said External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday had a meeting with British foreign secretary Philip Hammond, who said the UK was looking forward to the Prime Minister’s maiden visit later this year and “want some very substantive <g data-gr-id="16">outcome”from</g> the visit.
Swarup said Swaraj and Hammond also discussed <g data-gr-id="14">possibility</g> of UK's participation in India's smart cities programme and on bilateral investments.