PM returns after nine-day visit to Brazil

New Delhi, Sep 18 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here tonight after a nine-day visit to Brazil and Cuba, where he attended the first India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit.

In Brasilia, Dr Singh held bilateral talks with Brazilian leaders on September 12 and attended the IBSA summit the next day.

In Havana, he attended the 14th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit on September 15 and 16. He also held bilateral meetings with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and several other leaders.

Talking to journalists who travelled with him. Dr Singh said he had also reviewed India's relations with Iran and Venezuela at the meetings.

Apart from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Dr Singh had also met Cuba's ailing leader Fidel Castro, the country's acting President Raul Castro, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Saturday.

Others he met included Mongolian President Nambar Enkhbayar, Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam and Nepalese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister K P Sharma Oli.

The highlight of the visit was Dr Singh's meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in Havana on Saturday morning.

The Prime Minister expressed satisfaction at the outcome of his meeting with President Musharraf, and said Pakistan had made an explicit commitment to work with India to do all it could to fight terrorism.

''There is an explicit commitment on the part of Pakistan to say that they will work with us to do all that is in their control to fight this scourge,'' he told the mediapersons.

Dr Singh said the Pakistan President had assured him that his country had no hand in perpetuating terrorism in India.

''He did not go into the past. He said whatever has happened in the past, let's work together in the future,'' Dr Singh said.

They also strongly condemned all acts of terrorism, in the context of the July 11 Mumbai blasts, which claimed over 180 lives, and agreed that terrorism was a scourge that needed to be effectively dealt with.

Dr Singh had a one-on-one meeting with Gen Musharraf lasting a little over an hour at the end of which the two leaders issued a path-breaking Joint Statement.

The statement said the two leaders had decided to put in place an India-Pakistan anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations.

The Prime Minister, however, totally denied any suggestion that the joint statement issued by him and Gen Musharraf after their meeting on the margins of the NAM Summit was agreed upon at the behest of the United States or any other country. ''It is a question of our own sovereign national interest,'' he said.

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