NEW DELHI: Pakistan has short-listed two pieces of private property to rent in South Mumbai to open its Consulate, a High Commission official said. "We are in negotiations to decide on the property we will finally rent," the official said.

According to the official, Pakistani High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan has seen both locations. He also confirmed that the Maharashtra Government was helping Pakistani authorities buy a plot on which a consulate building could be constructed.

The decision to open the Pakistani Consulate in Mumbai and an Indian consulate in Karachi had been taken a year ago by Foreign Ministers Natwar Singh and Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.

The process of re-opening, which had been the victim of bureaucratic delays on both sides, received a fillip during the meeting of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf in April.

A joint statement issued here on April 18 said: "They [the Prime Minister and the President] agreed that the Consulates General of the two countries in Mumbai and Karachi respectively would be opened before the end of the year."

A source in the External Affairs Ministry said that repair work on the badly-damaged Indian property in Karachi had commenced.

Helpful to issue visas

The opening of the Consulates would also be helpful in issuing visas for passengers who will be travelling by the soon-to-be re-established Khokhrapar-Munabao route, which has been out of use since the 1965 war.

Mr. Singh and Gen. Musharraf also decided in April that the Khokhrapar-Munabao route would be re-established by January 1, 2006.

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