Click to play videoAddu: The Maldivian island of Addu is the latest exotic location for a meeting between the Indian and Pakistani leadership. Yet as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prepares to meet Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ahead of the SAARC summit, the challenge is no longer getting talks back on track, but making headway on the issues between them.
Sources told CNN-IBN the two leaders hope to focus on the 26/11 trial in Pakistan with a judicial commission expected in India to interview officials, visa liberalisation and the just announced MFN status from Pakistan that hopes to multiply bilateral trade from its current low figure of $ 2.6 billion.
Foreign Secretary Rajan Mathai on Saturday said, "Certainly the implementation of the MFN process, when it actually comes into effect will we believe have a very positive impact on Indo-Pak bilateral trade and certainly through that it could impact the overall intra-SAARC trade."
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir had earlier said that Pakistan is committed to MFN.
But building trade ties won't soften the blow of Pakistan's broken promises - that has made little movement in 3 years on speeding the 26/11 trial, tracking the masterminds of Mumbai including the ISI link and curbing Hafiz Saeed and his yet to be banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
Add to that the new strain over India's strategic pact with Afghanistan, that Pakistan views with suspicion.
It was at the last SAARC summit in Thimphu in April 2010, that those promises were given and the leaders resolved to normalise relations between India and Pakistan. Will the Addu spring now follow the Thimphu thaw?
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