The Hindu : National : India, Pakistan miss deadlines

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006

National

National

India, Pakistan miss deadlines

Diplomatic Correspondent

Consulates reopening and rail link restoration delayed

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan have missed deadlines for reopening the Karachi and Mumbai consulates by the end of 2005 and restoring the Munabao-Khokhrapar rail link between Rajasthan and Sindh by January 1, 2006.

These deadlines were set in the April 18, 2005 joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf in New Delhi.

Major problem

With railway officials of the two countries expected to meet later this week to set a date for commencing the rail service, it appears that the Munabao-Khokrapar link will be delayed only a little past the deadline of January 1.

However, the situation looks quite different as far as the reopening of the consulates is concerned. A major problem has developed around the property selected in Mumbai by the Pakistani side as the site of their consulate.

"We paid the advance on the property in November. But now we are being told that there might be `security issues' around us [in] running our consulate," a Pakistan High Commission source told this correspondent on Monday.

According to the source, the other occupants of the property in Mittal Chambers were fully aware that the Pakistan High Commission had rented the place to open its consulate. "It's strange that the objection has come now," he said.

The source was clear that in the unlikely event of all the problems being resolved on Tuesday it would take "at least two months" for the consulate to begin functioning. "We have approached the Ministry of External Affairs to resolve this issue," he said.

With the property issue taking centre-stage, the two countries are still to give diplomatic clearance to the Consulates-General designate — Johar Saleem from the Pakistani side and Navdeep Suri from India — to take up their new assignments.

The re-opening of the consulates and putting in place a second rail link between the two countries are seen as central to the welfare of divided families. It was expected that the Karachi and Mumbai consulates would reduce the travel time for people wanting to obtain visas.

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