New Delhi, Oct. 30: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s overture to Pakistan yesterday has set the tone for expectations in Delhi of a meeting between leaders of the two countries on the sidelines of the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago next month.

Sources here reckon that the possibility of limited talks and some diplomatic gestures may be in the offing should Islamabad show keenness in matching India’s willingness to walk more than half way to forge a cordial relationship.

The Commonwealth heads of government summit is scheduled to take place in Port of Spain from November 27-29.

In Srinagar yesterday, the Prime Minister said: “It’s not a precondition (dismantling terror infrastructures). Negotiations, which are essential and for which we are prepared, cannot make much headway unless Pakistan brings under effective control these terrorist groups.”

Manmohan Singh last held talks with his Pakistan counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on July 16.

The sources said it was not yet clear whether Gilani or President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the summit, but preparations were on for the meeting, which was expected to take forward the Sharm el-Sheikh summit’s goodwill gestures.

There, Singh’s offer to decouple Pakistani action against terrorism aimed at India from continuing talks created a controversy back home. The government has tried to explain it away by saying that delinking means “Pakistan can’t stop acting against terror because there is no dialogue process”.

Like the Sharm el-Sheikh summit build-up, this time, too, the US is nudging the two countries. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who has been visiting a violence-racked Pakistan, exhorted both sides in Lahore yesterday to talk.

The Indian foreign policy establishment feels strongly that Pakistan has to do more to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice. At the same, there is a view that India has to recognise that the Pakistani political establishment is walking a tightrope between acting against terror and the domestic backlash it generates.

“It’s very simple. Most of the terror camps are located near the Pakistan army camps. If they are so strong in their will to dismantle them, it shouldn’t be an uphill task,” said a source.

Although the possibility of limited talks is being discussed, the past is coming in the way. “What has the anti-terror mechanism between the two countries achieved? Mumbai happened when the mechanism was operational. At that time there were home-secretary level talks as well as commerce secretary-level talks. So the composite dialogue process didn’t ensure that Mumbai wouldn’t happen,” another official said.

In his speech in Srinagar, the Prime Minister focused on improving trans-Kashmir trade and popular contacts and stressed on “humanitarian issues whose resolution requires the cooperation of Pakistan”.

India is “ready to discuss these and other issues with the government of Pakistan. I hope that as a result, things will be made easier for our traders, divided families, prisoners and travellers”, he said.