In an interesting turn of events, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his intent to visit Pakistan on 25 December, 2015. Modi travelled from Afghanistan, where he inaugurated and addressed the Afghanistan parliament to Lahore, where he was met by Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif.
The visit comes after an interesting year for India-Pakistan relations, the Prime Ministers had a notable meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Ufa, Russia – which produced a joint statement outlining steps to improve cooperation between the nations.
The scheduled meeting of the NSA’s set to occur in August was abandoned after political and media controversy.
This slowed the dialogue process for months until early December where, days after another sideline between the two PM’s in Paris, the India and Pakistani NSA’s met in Malaysia.
Modi’s unscheduled visit comes as a surprise one which was welcomed by most in India and Pakistan, and with a prospective trip to Pakistan for the SAARC Summit in 2016, it sets the right tone for the coming year.