New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has officially approved the appointment of Pakistan’s new High Commissioner to India Moin ul Haque even as bilateral dialogue between both countries remains stalled with no signs of improvement in ties.
Haque’s posting was formally approved by the Indian authorities Sunday, an official told ThePrint.
The new high commissioner’s name was finalised after his predecessor Sohail Mahmood took over as the foreign secretary of Pakistan in April.
At present, Haque is finishing his tenure as Pakistan’s envoy to France.
He is expected to take charge of his India appointment by the end of this month or early August, said a second official who didn’t wish to be named.
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Tense ties
Moin ul Haque will be coming to India at a time when the relationship between both countries is at an all-time low.
Only five months ago, both countries almost came to a full-blown war triggered with the killing of 40 Indian security personnel in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, masterminded by Pakistan based militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
After Indian Air Force struck JeM’s base in Balakot on 26 February, Pakistan has kept its airspace shut disallowing any overflight through it towards India. In mid-April, Pakistan opened only one of its 11 air routes for west-bound flights from India.
Despite a bitter spat between both the countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan exchanged pleasantries on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit that took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in June.
Last month, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar threw a reception for the diplomatic corps based in New Delhi where the acting High Commissioner of Pakistan Syed Haidar Shah was invited.
However, according to official sources, India had made it quite clear to Pakistan during the SCO Summit that there won’t be any bilateral talks unless Islamabad took concrete steps to curb rise and spread of terrorism from that country.
Also in June, Pakistan was successful in keeping itself in the ‘Grey List’ at the Paris-based terror finance watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) even as India lobbied for its blacklisting.
Earlier this week, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar termed Pakistan’s crackdown on Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and his 12 aides as “cosmetic steps”.
Meanwhile, on 17 July, the Hague-based International Court of Justice will deliver its verdict in the case relating to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is on death row in Pakistan.
Haque, who is well aware of India’s neighbourhood having served in diplomatic positions in Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka, will face an uphill task to bring the two countries closer at this moment.
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Kartarpur Corridor
A low-hanging fruit for the new Pakistan envoy, though, could be the ongoing talks to open the Kartarpur Corridor.
Both sides are scheduled to have the next round of talks on 14 July on the Pakistan side of the Wagah border.
“There are differences… We will try to resolve the differences in the meeting,” Kumar said Thursday.
The corridor will link the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district with the Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Narowal, Pakistan, which is the final resting place of the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak. This year marks Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary.
The ground-breaking ceremony of the Kartarpur shrine took place on 28 November last year in Pakistan.
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