ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri will meet his new Indian counterpart Paranab Mukherjee during his ‘private trip’ to New Delhi this week. The occasion will be a lunch hosted by Mr Mukherjee for Mr Kasuri as a goodwill gesture on Nov 27. The venue of what is being billed as an ‘unofficial meeting’ will be the palatial Hyderabad House in the Indian capital where the just concluded foreign secretaries-level talks were also held.

This was disclosed by the new Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal in a brief chat with Dawn at a reception hosted in his honour by Indian Deputy High Commissioner T.C.A. Raghavan at their residence here on Friday.

When contacted Mr Kasuri said: “Yes, I received an invitation for a luncheon by the Indian foreign minister a few days ago which I accepted. I will be very happy to meet him for the first time since he has taken over as the foreign minister.”

He said he had met Mr Mukherjee “very briefly” in Delhi during President Musharraf’s visit to India last year at a meeting.

Mr Kasuri parried a question that if Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen and other outstanding issues would also be on the ‘menu’ of the lunch. Insisting that it was a private visit, he said:” There is nothing official about it.” When further pressed he said choice of the ‘menu’ was the prerogative of the host.

The Indian High Commissioner Pal, who returned from New Delhi only the other day after attending the foreign secretary-level talks, said he would be going back again for the lunch being hosted by his external affairs minister. When asked if that meant it could be termed as a ‘working lunch’, he said: “Well, we are not giving it any description.” He said that the invitation was a mere gesture of courtesy being extended by Mr Mukherjee to Mr Kasuri who “very graciously” accepted it.