Sushma Swaraj is likely to attend a meeting on Afghanistan, which will be held in Islamabad.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is likely to visit Pakistan next week, top government sources told NDTV. She is likely to attend a 27-nation meeting on Afghanistan, which will be held in Islamabad, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif shook hands in Paris.
India had been invited for the conference, which will be held on December 7 and 8. But it had not been decided who would represent the nation, sources said.
The plans to send Ms Swaraj came days after the meeting between PM Modi and Mr Sharif in Paris, where they had gone to attend the global climate change summit.
The two leaders had shaken hands and shared a sofa for a few minutes' tete-a-tete on November 30. Mr Sharif was seen listening attentively as PM Modi spoke to him.
It is understood that the interaction was more than a "courtesy meeting," which was how government officials had described it. Later, Mr Sharif had said, "Talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi were good. Doors of dialogue should open."
The last initiative for India Pakistan talks came in July, when PM Modi and Mr Sharif held a bilateral meeting in Russia's Ufa on the sidelines of a conference. Soon after, National Security advisor-level talks were scheduled.
But the initiative fell through at the last minute when the talks were cancelled over a proposed meeting between Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz and the Kashmiri separatists. When Pakistan pushed for an "open agenda", India said there could be no such meeting and the agenda should be confined to terrorism.
In September, both prime ministers attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York and even stayed at the same hotel, but there was no formal meeting.