WASHINGTON, Sept 7: Pakistan may first allow its citizens to visit Muslim holy places in Al Quds and the West Bank before it recognizes Israel, says the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In a research paper issued on Wednesday the institute, whose board of advisers includes three former US secretaries of state, a former national security adviser and the current Israeli ambassador to Washington, describes the Sept 1 meeting between the foreign ministers of Israel and Pakistan as ‘historic’.

The authors, British journalist Simon Henderson and Turkish scholar Soner Cagaptay, say that Islamabad is concerned by the warmth of Israel’s diplomatic, military, and commercial relations with India.

They point out that Israeli officials now consider New Delhi and Ankara their country’s second most important diplomatic outposts after Washington.

They, however, reject as ‘overstated’ the claim that Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic elite’s “quiet admiration for Israel’s nation-building” could also have contributed to the Istanbul meeting.