Pakistan

Delhi to host next round of visa talks

Pakistan-India Joint Working Group on Bilateral Visa Agreement concludes meeting, decides to continue dialogue.

Umer Nangiana June 04, 2011

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan-India Joint Working Group on Bilateral Visa Agreement concluded its two-day meeting on Friday, and decided to continue the dialogue before the end of August in New Delhi.

The new agreement will be finalised in the next round of Home/Interior Secretaries level talks in Islamabad.

The latest talks, the first of their kind, which commenced on Thursday, were held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere. The two sides discussed the details and modalities of visa facilitation in a bid to ease the travelling process for nationals of the neighbouring counties. The group also discussed amendments in the existing visa agreement.

A three-member Indian delegation arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday to participate in the meeting of the working group formed with an aim to replace hard-line visa policies.

The decision to form a Joint Working Group was taken during the India-Pakistan Interior and Home Secretary level talks, held in New Delhi on March 28-29, 2011.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2011.

COMMENTS (2)

Animesh Naskar | 13 years ago | Reply Visa rules were tightened in India to prevent cross border infiltration after Mumbai incidence and Headley relevation. Unfortunately this impacts people to people interactions and society as a whole. Hope with the start of composite dialogue our differences can be reduced and societies can bond.

Huma Bukhari | 13 years ago | Reply I got married to a Muslim Indian national last year. Before marriage I had an idea that it will be a difficult marriage due to the existing problems betweens Pakistan and India. However, when I got married only then I realized how much difficult this Indo-pak issue is for people like us. I went to the Indian consulate in Dubai (where I was living after marriage) to get information about spouse visa. Unfortunately,the visa officer provided me totally wrong information. He told me that first I will be given a 10 days visa, then may be for a month or so (single entry) and after traveling on such visas for 5 years I may be considered to get a multiple entry visa. On asking, what if I want Indian nationality, he told me that in that case I will have to travel on single entry visa for 7 years and only then I will be eligible to get Indian nationality. I could clearly see that the information provided was wrong so I asked him, "and how do such husband and wife live together if the visa rules are so ridiculous?" He told me that in that case they should either not live together or stay outside India, for instance, in pakistan or Dubai. I could only appreciate his logic. On Pakisatan side, the story was no different. I was told that my husband may get Pakistan visa (single entry) in around 60 days. Further, there is no spouse visa for husbands of Pakistani women. All I can say here is that visa rules must be very flexible in case of such couples or else the basic family structure is likely to be destroyed.

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