Islamabad: India has proposed to meet Pakistan officials in the first week of September at Attari on the Indian side of the international border to hold the discussion on Kartarpur corridor. If Pakistan agrees, this will be the third India-Pakistan officials' meet, the first of which was in March and the second was in July.
The focus of the meeting will be to finalise the agreement on the modalities for Kartarpur corridor and will follow a technical-level meeting to finalise the alignment of the temporary road, as agreed by Pakistan in July for the corridor.
When the second round of talks between Indian and Pakistani officials took place on July 14, Islamabad agreed to construct a bridge over the old Ravi creek that will allow all-weather pilgrimage to the Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib, throughout the year.
Other focus points will be modalities on the exchange information about using the corridor and modalities to deal with emergencies such as medical cases, during operation of the corridor. The development comes a day ahead of the fourth round of technical meet on Kartarpur that will happen on August 30 at the zero point on India-Pakistan border in Punjab.
Pakistan despite stated commitments was dragging its feet on to confirm the meeting which India had proposed in the first week of August and despite repeated reminders took one month to decide on.
Work is on in full swing on the Indian side of the Kartarpur corridor with Indian officials monitoring daily progress. India is building a four-lane highway and passenger bus terminal.
Both sides are keen to open the corridor, which was agreed by both the nations in 2018, ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Devji in November 2019.
