Narendra Modi Shakes Hand With Nawaz Sharif At Shanghai Cooperation Summit 

ASTANA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday exchanged greetings with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Kazakhstan's capital Astana on his arrival here to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

Both the leaders were at the leaders' lounge at an Opera in the evening before the concert and banquet hosted by Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Sources said Mr. Modi enquired about Mr. Sharif's health after the surgery that the Pakistan premier had undergone last year. PM Modi also enquired about the well-being of Mr. Sharif' s family including his mother. PM Modi had met Mr. Sharif's family during his brief trip to Lahore in December, 2015. There was no formal bilateral meeting scheduled at Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the SCO Summit since neither side had asked for it in view of the tension in Indo-Pak ties.

During the banquet the two leaders were not seated on the same table. Both India and Pakistan will be inducted tomorrow as full members of the SCO.

No official meeting was scheduled between Modi and Sharif at the two-day-long SCO Summit amid a thaw in bilateral relations.

India has been stressing that talks and terror cannot go hand in hand. PM Modi had earlier asserted that Islamabad "must walk away from terror if it wants to have dialogue with India".

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception today.

Next on PM Modi's agenda is a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He will also meet Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev before attending the sessions of the Summit.