The Lahore Declaration Use these buttons to navigate to the other index pages. It would, therefore, be premature to attempt any definitive assessment of the long-term impact on bilateral relations and regional peace of the Lahore Declaration signed by the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, at the conclusion of their talks at Lahore on February 21,1999.
Wisdom demands that one keeps one s fingers crossed.
This need not, however, come in the way of a tentative analysis of the points of agreement outlined in the joint statement of the two Prime Ministers, the Lahore Declaration and the Memorandum of Understanding signed at the conclusion of the visit, the first two by the two Prime Ministers and the third by their Foreign Secretaries. The statement also records the Indian Prime Minister s invitation to Nawaz Sharif for a return visit to India on mutually convenient dates. Such an outcome would be welcomed by large sections of the public opinion in the two countries. It also belies the expectations of many analysts that the Lahore meeting might result in a finalisation of the proposed agreement on the purchase of Pakistan s surplus electricity by India. Another belied expectation relates to the re-opening of the Indian Consulate in Karachi and Indian agreement for the opening of a Pakistani Consulate in Mumbai.