Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will fly to Amritsar and board the bus to Lahore from there on February 20 to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. There has been no official bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan since 1987 and this has created a sense of optimism about the possibility of improved relations between the two countries.

Sources in the Ministry of External Affairs said here that the two PMs may make a joint statement on the control of the weapons of mass destruction regionally and world wide. This is calculated to elevate the level of the Indo-Pak talks and signal to the world community that India is not interested in proliferation but has acquired the nuclear status as a currency of power. The Prime Minister may also address a rally in Lahore, if the Pakistangovernment agrees, say sources. The details of the PM's visit are still being finalised.

However, even if it is not possible to address a meeting in a hall and directly reach out to the people of Pakistan with his persuasive oratorial skills, the Indian team here says that New Delhi would have no objection if Sharif would like to address the Indian people during a visit to this country.

The Prime Minister has already stated that he will reiterate India's no- first-use offer to Pakistan, but South Block will not be unduly worried if Islamabad does not accept it. New Delhi realises that Pakistan may not accept the offer because not having parity with India in conventional weapons, it wants to use the nuclear issue to make the point of parity.

Vajpayee was asked by journalists on board the PM's plane en route Port of Spain to Montego Bay, where the G-15 summit opens today, whether he would offer a no-war pact to Pakistan. The PM replied, ``Aisa be sujhav hai.''At the political level, breaking the icebetween Delhi and Islamabad, would strengthen the Prime Minister's hands at this point, improving his credentials among the country's minorities and as a result his acceptability to his alliance partners. The idea of a bus to Lahore was first mooted by Sharif at the luncheon meeting the two leaders had in New York last September, say MEA sources. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, who was apparently also present at the meeting, had suggested a rail link between Sind and Rajasthan and the Punjabi in Sharif surfaced immediately to retort: ``Why not a bus between Delhi and Lahore?''

The MEA lay low for many months because it did not want any over enthusiasm by India to be shot down by Pakistan. Finally the offer was made by Nawaz Sharif in an interview to The Indian Express and it was accepted with alacrity by Vajpayee. India, which is buying sugar from Pakistan and is all set to sign an agreement with it for the purchase of power, also hopes that a beginning can be made to formalise some of the $3billion unofficial trade between the two countries. Most of the items get exchanged on the high seas today and do not even reach Dubai as they used to.