India and Pakistan should be allies in the war on poverty, says Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist leader expected to become India's next prime minister.
Narendra Modi has offered a new era of economic cooperation with Pakistan, if it stops terrorist attacks on India from its territory.
In an interview with The Times of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and chief minister of Gujarat said both countries faced a common enemy in widespread poverty which they could tackle to together if a new trust could be established.
If he becomes prime minister when the results of the biggest election in history are announced next week, on May 16, he is ready to write a "new chapter" in relations between the nuclear neighbours if Islamabad can first demonstrate its commitment to peace by stopping terrorist attacks being launched from its soil.
His comments will be welcomed in Pakistan, where senior officials last month told The Telegraph they would like Mr Modi to become prime minister because they believe only an Indian government under a strong leader will be able to reopen talks and make progress towards normalising relations.
India and Pakistan have fought four wars since their independence from Britain and partition from one another in 1947. Relations had been improving until the 2008 Mumbai attacks when Lashkar e Taiba terrorists sailed to India's commercial capital by sea from Karachi and massacred more than 160 people in a three-day rampage. Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, accused elements within Pakistan's security apparatus of supporting the attacks, which brought the enemies close to a fifth war.
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