Congress terms PM Modi's meeting with Nawaz Sharif as 'photo opportunity'

Congress leader Manish Tewari on Friday dubbed today's meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif as a 'futile exercise', adding that it was just a photo opportunity.

"The fundamental question is that why the meeting is taking place. It is an exercise in futility. It is void ab-initio. It is nothing more than a photo opportunity. These are the same people who said that terror and talks cannot go hand in hand, these are the same people who called off talks after Pakistani High Commissioner met Hurriyat. What has really changed?.... This meeting is an absolutely unprecedented disaster," Tewari told ANI.

Prime Minister Modi will hold bilateral talks with Sharif on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Ufa, Russia today.

According to reports, Prime Minister Modi will, during the talks, strongly raise India's concerns on terror and the release of Lakhavi with Pakistan.

The meeting between the Prime Ministers of both countries comes a day after Pakistani troops had fired at a Border Security Force forward post in Kashmir, killing a jawan. This was the second such incident in the past week.