The Indo-Pak peace process will pick up pace in January with the much-awaited opening of Consulates in Karachi and Mumbai and the launch of a second train route connecting Pakistan's Sindh province and Rajasthan.
Though the two countries have not yet announced the formal opening of Consulates, closed since 1992, both sides are finalising arrangements to open them by January, 2006.
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"The two sides are in touch with each other to work out the logistics. We have seen the reports that India has already finalised its Consular General. We have not yet forwarded the name from Pakistan side. If everything goes well, they should be functional from early next year," Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told PTI.
She said India had not forwarded the name of its Consular General Navdeep Suri, though his name was announced by the Indian government to the media in New Delhi.
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Pakistan was in the process of finalising its Consular General in Mumbai, she said.
Gitesh Sarma, a senior Indian diplomat, visited Karachi last week to supervise arrangements to reopen the Indian Consulate there.
A delegation of Pakistan Railway officials headed by General Manager, Railways, Saleemur Rehman Akhmund will travel to New Delhi on December 3 to sign an agreement to reopen the Kokhrapar-Munnabao link, which had been closed since 1965.
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Divisional Superintendent of Pakistan Railways in Karachi, Junaid Qureshi told media persons on Sunday that the conversion of 130 km metre guage track between Mirpurkhas to Khokhrapar to broad guage had been completed.
A new railway station was also being built at Khokhrapar close to Rajasthan border.
The opening of consulates is considered a major diplomatic triumph for the current peace process, which began with the declaration of ceasefire in November 2003, followed by two rounds of Composite Dialogue Process covering Kashmir and seven other contentious issues.
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The third round will start in January with the Foreign Secretary-level meeting.
The Consulate opening and resumption of train services were agreed during President Pervez Musharraf's visit to New Delhi in April. The joint statement at the end of his visit said the consulates would be opened by the end of this year and the train service would begin by January, 2006.
Former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh during his recent tour to Pakistan had inspected the renovation work at the Indian consulate and the staff quarters in Karachi, damaged during mob attacks in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. The properties were owned by India.
Pakistan subsequently staked claim for Jinnah House - the residence of its founder in Mumbai and linked reopening of its consulate there to its handing over. India declined to do so and subsequently converted Jinnah House into SAARC museum.
Pakistan now plans to open its Consulate in a temporary building in Mumbai and was in the process of purchasing land to build a permanent Consulate in Mumbai.
The consulate opening will ease pressure on the High Commission in Islamabad, which currently issues around 10,000 visas a month. Most applicants are from Karachi and Sindh, where large sections of migrants from India settled after partition.
At present, the applicants have to travel some 1000 km from Karachi to Islamabad for applying for visas.
Both sides already operate bus and train services through Wagah border and a bus between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar. They have also opened five border points after last month's massive earthquake.
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