Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Pakistan on Friday to meet his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, the first time an Indian premier has visited the rival nation in over a decade. State TV footage showed an Indian Air Force jumbo jet land in the late afternoon at Lahore's Allama Iqbal International Airport where Sharif — who celebrated his birthday the same day — had flown in by helicopter moments earlier. Sharif, flanked by his cabinet ministers, received Modi and hugged him on the tarmac where military officers lined up along a red carpet. Both leaders wore their national dresses and made their way to Sharif's helicopter, which flew them to the Pakistani prime minister's palatial residence just south of the city. They were seen smiling as they walked alongside each other and chatted in Sharif's living room. Modi was on his way home after a visit to Russia. He stopped off in the Afghanistan capital Kabul earlier in the day. After months of a freeze, India and Pakistan resumed high-level contacts with a brief conversation between Sharif and Modi at climate change talks in Paris late last month, part of efforts to restart a peace dialogue plagued by militant attacks and long-standing distrust. Modi, who inaugurated a new parliament complex built with Indian help in Kabul, spoke to Sharif earlier Friday to wish him on his 66th birthday. "Looking forward to meeting PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore today afternoon, where I will drop by on my way back to Delhi," Modi tweeted. The two prime ministers flew to Sharif's estate in Lahore named Jati Umra, after his family's ancestral home in a Punjabi village in India, Pakistan state TV reported. A close aide to Modi said the visit was a spontaneous decision by the prime minister and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and that it should not be seen as a sudden shift in India's position. "But yes, it's a clear signal that active engagement can be done at a quick pace," the aide said, declining to be identified. Mistrust between India and Pakistan runs deep. Modi's visit is the first by an Indian prime minister to Pakistan since the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed in the Indian city by militants trained in Pakistan. Modi, a Hindu zealot, came to power in 2014, and has authorized a more robust approach to Pakistan, giving security forces the license to retaliate forcefully along their disputed border and demanding an end to insurgent attacks in Indian territory. Nalin Kohli, a spokesman for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, said in New Delhi that India was ready to take two steps forward if Pakistan took one to improve ties. The countries have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir. The opposition Congress Party called Modi's visit irresponsible and said that nothing had happened to warrant warming of ties between the rivals. Scheduled high-level talks between the two were cancelled in August after ceasefire violations across the border. "If the decision is not preposterous then it is utterly ridiculous," Congress leader Manish Tewari said.
