Indo-Pak visa procedures to be further simplified says Salman Bashir

Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir disclosed here today that while the India-Pakistan visa agreement has been implemented by Pakistan, steps would be taken by his country to simplify the modalities to ease the process of acquiring a visa.

Addressing the media here today, Salman Bashir said: "Although the new visa agreement is being implemented now, there are certainly more that can be done, even within the context of present new visa agreement to simplify the modalities."

He assured that he would make sure that the time taken to issue a visa would be minimized and the procedure would be further simplified.

"I am told that probably we are taking less time; maybe the visas are being issued in two or three days or less and of course there would be more efforts put in by us, in terms of improving our process of visa facilities in Delhi," he said.

"Certainly, the intention is to be as facilitative as possible. The idea is to have as many contacts, people to people, business to business level and if we are able to facilitate that, then it makes sense," he added.

India had earlier in April started visa on arrival facility for senior citizens of Pakistan.

The facility, which was supposed to start on January 15 as part of the new liberalized visa pact between the Asian neighbours, was suspended following the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC) and subsequent heightened tensions in bilateral ties.

India and Pakistan had agreed to operationalise the group tourist visa facility to be offered to each other's citizens from March 15.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, had earlier in May extended his congratulations to Nawaz Sharif and his party for their emphatic victory in Pakistan's elections.

He conveyed India's desire to work with the new government of Pakistan in charting a new course for the relationship between the two countries

Dr. Singh had earlier this year said that the barbaric killing of Indian soldiers along the LoC had cast a shadow on bilateral relations, and asked Islamabad to create a conducive environment to take the normalisation process forward.