LK Advani Backs PM Modi's Lahore Stopover, Says Must Take Vajpayee's Initiative Forward

New Delhi: BJP veteran LK Advani on Saturday backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stopover in Lahore on Friday saying the process, of improving relations between Indian and Pakistan, started by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee should be taken forward.

Mr Advani's remarks came a day after Mr Modi had, on his return from Kabul, made an unscheduled halt at Lahore and visited Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his birthday. Friday was also Mr Vajpayee's birthday.

After returning to India on Friday evening, Mr Modi tweeted that he was "touched" by Mr Sharif's gesture of first receiving him at the Lahore airport and then travelling to the airport to see him off. After the return he went to Mr Vajpayee's house.

The former prime minister who turned 91 yesterday had travelled to Lahore in a bus in 1999 and started a peace initiative. "The initiative that Vajpayee ji had begun, taking that process forward the leaders of our regime today including Modi ji and others, they too should contribute firmly in making relations between India and Pakistan better," Mr Advani told journalists in Kutch, Gujarat.

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"And, the terror outfits that have sprung up in the recent past, people should get relief from them...(There should be) friendship between the two nations," the former Deputy Prime Minister said.