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Pakistan team to visit Delhi on March 14 for talks on Kartarpur corridor
A statement issued by the Pakistani foreign ministry stated that the Pakistani delegation’s visit to New Delhi would be followed by a “return visit” two weeks later on March 28 to discuss the draft agreement on the Kartarpur corridor.
A Pakistan delegation will visit New Delhi on March 14 to discuss the draft agreement on the Kartarpur corridor.
This latest development comes amid festering tensions between India and Pakistan after the Pulwama suicide bombing that killed 40 CRPF jawans on February 14 this year and an air strike by the Indian Air Force on a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training camp in Balakot in Pakistan. The air strike was followed a day later by a “package” of the Pakistan Air Force transgressing into Indian air space with a view to bomb military installations in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district.
The Pakistani delegation’s visit to New Delhi will come exactly a month after the Pulwama attack.
Also read: Full text of Pakistan’s 14-point proposals for Kartarpur pilgrimage
The statement, issued by the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs on Tuesday, comes after the acting Indian High Commissioner was “invited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today” to convey that Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India would be “returning to New Delhi after completion of consultations in Islamabad”.
The statement also said that the Pakistani delegation’s visit would be followed up by a “return visit of the Indian delegation to Islamabad on 28 March”.
It also stated that Pakistan was committed to continued “weekly contact at the Military Operations Directorates level”.
Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan had laid the foundation stone of the Kartarpur corridor in Pakistan’s Narowal on November 28. Punjab cabinet minister and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu had also attended the event amid much criticism from fellow Congress leaders and other political parties.
Soon after that, Pakistan had finalised the draft of a 14-point agreement with India on the basis of which Indian pilgrims would be allowed to enter the country to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur. The corridor is expected to be operational by November 2019.
