Mufti, who travelled to Islamabad last week to participate in a conference, met Sharif in Lahore on Thursday.

She invited Sharif, whose party is a member of the ruling PPP-led coalition, to visit Jammu and Kashmir after he expressed his desire to come to the state.

"He is a son of the soil. Keeping all political thoughts aside, we will warmly welcome him," she told the Daily Times before her departure to New Delhi.

Mufti said Sharif had expressed a desire to visit Shopian, a town in southern Jammu and Kashmir from where his ancestors had migrated to Pakistan.

Recently, Sharif's close aides had said that he wanted to travel to Srinagar to inaugurate a hospital being built by his friend and well-known cardiologist Fayaz Shawl.

Mufti also expressed concern at the volatile security situation and "chaos" in Pakistan saying it reminded her of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir some years back.

"Of late, the violence level is going up and there is a sense of insecurity in many areas of Pakistan, which reminds me of what Jammu and Kashmir was like some years back."

Mufti said that one of her two daughters had advised her to give up politics after Pakistan People's Party chairperson and former premier Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December last year.