External affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi will be in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the weekend. However,both countries said on Saturday that no meeting was planned between the two leaders.
Hours after Qureshi began his three-day visit to the UAE, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi took to Twitter and announced that Jaishankar would visit Abu Dhabi on April 18 at the invitation of his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Qureshi tweeted, “Good to be in the #UAE and to have met the Pakistan Business Council Dubai for a constructive session on #EconomicDiplomacy. The Pakistani community in UAE continue to play a positive role across all echelons of business & work with great contributions to the development” of Pakistan-UAE ties.
The announcement triggered speculation about a meeting between Jaishankar and Qureshi, especially in the wake of the acknowledgment by a senior Emirati diplomat of the UAE’s role in facilitating secret talks between India and Pakistan.
However, both India and Pakistan have refuted such speculations and said both the ministers will have separate bilateral visits.
This is the second time they will be in the same country for a visit in less than three weeks – both were in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe for the Heart of Asia meeting on March 30.