Sharon will receive Pakistani delegation in Jerusalem
PakistanTimes.net Monitoring Report

JERUSALEM: A 200-member delegation consisting of Pakistani officials and businessmen will visit Israel in early November in a bid to bring the two countries closer, Israeli military radio said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom will receive the delegation, the radio said, though there has been no official confirmation.

The relations between the most populous Muslim country in the world and the Jewish state have been hostile for decades, but began to warm up after Israel offered aid to Pakistan following this month’s devastating earthquake.

Pakistan accepted Israel’s offer, indicating that the sole Muslim nuclear power was cautiously moving towards better ties with Israel.

Recap

Earlier this year Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shook hands on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Two weeks prior to the famous handshake, the two countries’ foreign ministers met in Istanbul for the first-ever high-level meeting aimed at normalising bilateral relations.

Pakistan had “decided to engage with Israel,” its foreign minister said then, because Israel’s pullout of settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip constituted a turning point for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israel currently has full diplomatic relations with only three Arab states, Mauritania, Egypt and Jordan and a handful of Muslim majority states including Turkey.●