India sends reminder to Pakistan on Kartarpur

New Delhi: Despite the strain in Indo-Pak ties, India has sent a reminder to Pakistan to hold technical level meetings “to work out arrangements and finalise the alignment  of the interim approach path for the Kartarpur Corridor, to develop a mechanism to share information about pilgrims between nodal points, and to also develop a mechanism to deal with exigencies that may arise in the use of the corridor”, sources said on Saturday. Sources said the reminder was issued after Pakistan failed to respond to an Indian request to hold the meeting in the first week of August. Sources said India had also “shared proposals for finalising the agreement on the modalities to operationalise the Kartarpur Corridor”.

Just recently despite the fresh strain in Indo-Pak ties following New Delhi’s move to bifurcate J&K state and revoke Article 370, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said, “The Kartarpur initiative will continue.”

Both countries are constructing a corridor on their respective territories for Indian Sikh pilgrims to visit the historic Gurudwara in November this year for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The corridors will obviously have to be aligned.

Sources, “India had proposed to Pakistan to hold technical level meetings in the first week of August to work out arrangements and finalise the alignment  of the interim approach path for the Kartarpur Corridor, develop mechanism to share information about pilgrims between nodal points, develop mechanism to deal with exigencies that may arise in the use of the corridor. Pakistan is yet to respond. A reminder has also been issued to them.” Sources further said, “India hopes that Pakistan would respond expeditiously on these proposals in order to operationalise the Kartarpur corridor in time for the 550th birth anniversay of Guru Nanak Dev.”

Drawing attention to the Kartarpur project, Punjab CM Capt. Amrinder Singh had recently said, “Kashmir is our internal matter and Pakistan’s decision to downgrade diplomatic ties is a knee-jerk reaction.

Both countries must take adequate steps to ensure progress of #KartarpurCorridor isn’t jeopardised in light of @pid_gov (Pakistan) decision to downgrade diplomatic relations with India.”

The Indian government sources had earlier said in June this year, “Following the decision taken by the Cabinet on November 22, 2018, India is expeditiously building the requisite infrastructure, including a four-lane highway and a state-of-art passenger terminal for the corridor. More than 45 per cent of work on the Indian side has been completed. It is targeted to complete the road by end September 2019 and the passenger/ pilgrim terminal by end October 2019, in time to operationalise the Kartarpur corridor on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev falling in November 2019.”