India's prime minister will attend a regional summit in Russia next week, an official said on Friday, where he is expected to meet President Asif Ali Zardari for the first time since the Mumbai attacks. Manmohan Singh, who this week offered to meet Pakistan "more than halfway" if it cracked down on militants operating against India, will leave for Yekaterinburg for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) meet on Monday.
Indian officials had previously refused to confirm whether or not Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari would meet, but India's Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters that the two would "be in the same room, at the same place, at the same time." "They will I'm sure shake hands, but more than that it's hard to predict at this stage," said Menon. The most recent high-level India-Pakistan meeting took place in September when Singh met Zardari on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.