Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a surprise stop in the Pakistani city of Lahore to meet his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than a decade.
Sharif received Modi at the airport on Friday and greeted him with a hug, local television showed.
A spokesman at the Pakistani prime minister's office told Reuters the two leaders would discuss a range of bilateral issues, including the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, the most contentious issue dividing the nuclear-armed rivals.
Modi was on his way home after a visit to Russia. He stopped off in the Afghanistan capital Kabul earlier on Friday.
After months of a freeze, India and Pakistan resumed high-level contacts with a brief conversation between Sharif and Modi at climate change talks in Paris late last month, part of efforts to restart a peace dialogue plagued by militant attacks and long-standing distrust.
Modi, who inaugurated a new parliament complex built with Indian help in Kabul, spoke to Sharif earlier on Friday to wish him well on his 66th birthday.
"Looking forward to meeting PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore today afternoon, where I will drop by on my way back to Delhi," Modi tweeted.
The two prime ministers flew to Sharif's estate in Lahore named Jati Umra, after his family's ancestral home in a Punjabi village in India, Pakistan state TV reported.
A close aide to Modi said the visit was a spontaneous decision by the prime minister and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and that it should not be seen as a sudden shift in India's position.
"But yes, it's a clear signal that active engagement can be done at a quick pace," the aide said, declining to be identified.
Mistrust between India and Pakistan runs deep. Modi's visit is the first by an Indian prime minister to Pakistan since the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed in the Indian city by militants trained in Pakistan.
