Nearly a week after India and Pakistan expelled each other's top diplomats, they have agreed in principle to grant visas to new Deputy high commissioners appointed by them.
It has been agreed that assignment visas of senior Indian diplomat T C A Raghavan and Pakistan's Munawar Saeed Bhatti would be cleared on Tuesday, Vikram Misri, acting Charge d'Affaires of the Indian High Commission here, said.
He said Raghavan and Bhatti would simultaneously be granted visas after which they would decide on the dates to take over their respective assignments. Both have been designated as deputy high commissioners until the appointment of high commissioners, Misri said.
Both countries had nominated Raghavan and Bhatti even before India expelled Pakistani's Charge d'Affaires Jalil Abbas Jilani along with four high commission staffers in New Delhi on February 8.
In a tit-for-tat action the same day, Islamabad asked India's CDA Sudir Vyas and four others, including First secretary Rahul Rasgotra, to leave the country.
The visas of Raghavan and Bhatti were pending with foreign ministries of the two countries for several months as bilateral relations dipped after the terrorist attack on Parliament in 2001.
After a series of expulsions, India and Pakistan have brought down their staff strength in their diplomatic missions in Islamabad and New Delhi from 120 to 47 members.
The Indian high commission currently has only 41 members, as the visas of the replacements of the expelled officials have not yet been cleared.
The Indian Mission here has only three diplomats against Pakistan's five in New Delhi as Islamabad has expelled more diplomats.
Meanwhile, the Dawn newspaper has reported that Pakistan is likely to propose new dates for holding the 12th SAARC Summit. Islamabad wants to hold the summit in the last quarter of this year, it said quoting a senior official.
The summit was to be held from Jan 11 to 13 in Islamabad, but Pakistan postponed the seminar accusing India and Bhutan of not confirming its participation in time. According to SAARC charter, a summit cannot take place if even one member state decides to abstain.
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