 External Affairs Minister SM Krishna is received by Pakistan's High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir on his arrival in Islamabad on Friday. |
India and Pakistan are all set to sign a liberalised visa agreement with Islamabad going all out to state that the new pact was on the anvil while New Delhi preferred to be guarded till the event scheduled for tomorrow takes place.
India’s cautious approach can be understood in the context of the last-minute change of plan in May 2012 when Pakistan insisted the pact has to be at a political level and not at the Home Secretaries’ one as was planned.
Sources said more categories of visa would form part of the pact including those for tourists, 36-hour-transit visa, civil society, multiple entries for business and visa on arrival for senior citizens.
The other pacts in the works are for cultural exchange and across the Line of Control confidence-building measures to facilitate trade and travel in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the joint working group meeting on the issue, both sides agreed to suggest to the ministers things like strengthening infrastructure, better communication links and group tourism. These would be taken up for approval.
Krishna, who arrived here this morning, held a series of meetings with leaders of political parties that have representatives in the National Assembly - Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party before calling on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raza Pervez Ashraf.
Zardari and Krishna reviewed the progress of bilateral relationships with the former underscoring the need to carry it forward. In his meeting with Ashraf, the latter reiterated the invitation for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan.
Earlier, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that India should approach the Mumbai terror attacks trial without bringing in emotions asserting that terror may have been used in the past, but it was not the mantra for the future.
Her remarks came in the backdrop of the message from New Delhi that terrorism and early completion of the Mumbai attacks trial remain its “core concerns”.
Emphasising that Pakistan too suffers on account of terrorism, she said that it was necessary to view the situation realistically citing that the judicial process in the Mumbai trial would take time.
She asserted that Islamabad had sent some strong signals so that New Delhi was viewed from a different prism.
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