ISLAMABAD, March 10 (UNI) Pakistan today said it is yet to receive a formal invitation from India for President GeneralPervez Musharraf to witnesses a match of the ongoing seriesbetween the two cricketing arch-rivals.
However, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today said he had decided to invite the Pakistan President to watch a match in the ongoing Indo-Pak series, saying it was his desire that the people of the neighbouring country should feel free to enter this country.
"We have not received a formal invitation as yet," Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad told UNI here this afternoon.
He said the government would take a decision as and when an invitation is received from New Delhi.
General Musharraf had last week shown interest in watching a match between the traditional Asian rivals if invited.
"I love watching any sport.
I would love watching cricket.
[But] I don't believe in going without an invitation anywhere.
If there is an invitation, one would certainly like to consider," he told a English daily in Islamabad.
He would be the second military President to engage in a "cricket diplomacy".
Earlier another former President General Zia-ul-Haq had surprised the world in 1987 when he visited Banglore to watch a match between the two tea in the midst of high tensions.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told UNI, "Indian government has contacted us with regard to visit of President Musharraf to witness one of the matches." He said the foreign office is looking into schedule of the President, as to what will be a convenient date for him to travel to India.
"A final decision will be taken keeping in view the convenience of the President," Jilani said.
This will be President Musharraf's first visit to India after the Agra summit in August 2001.