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Home  » News » Pak wants Jinnah House for consulate

Pak wants Jinnah House for consulate

By K J M Varma in Islamabad
February 12, 2007 20:24 IST
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Pakistan on Monday said it was facing great difficulty in finding an appropriate accommodation for its consulate in Mumbai and it would be helpful if India handed over the Jinnah House.

The place has been converted into a SAARC museum.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan so far has not received any indication from India about its request.

"We have no such indication and you know we are facing great difficulty in locating an appropriate accommodation in Mumbai for our consulate-general building," Aslam said.

"If India were to hand over the Jinnah house obviously it would help us. But no, we have no indication," she said.

After the 2004 peace process both sides agreed to open the consulates in Karachi and Mumbai, which were closed after the Babri Masjid demolition.

Pakistan has also declined permission to India to open its renovated consulate which was ready for functioning in Karachi, saying that it can be reopened only after Islamabad found an accommodation in Mumbai.

However, it continued to press for the Jinnah House even after India said the building has been converted into a museum for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

On Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks that Amritsar should be made the hub of business and trade activity on both sides of Indian and Pakistani Punjab provinces, she said normalisation of economic relations between the two countries depended on the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

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K J M Varma in Islamabad
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