Times Now News | Sushma Swaraj to not attend Kartarpur Corridor inauguration; to send Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Hardeep Singh Puri

Nov 25,2018

Responding to the invitation of Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to attend the opening ceremony of Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said due to prior commitments, including election campaign in Telangana, she will not be able to attend the ceremony.

Swaraj thanked Qureshi for the invitation and said, “Being mindful of the sentiments of our Sikh citizens and the importance of facilitating their smooth and easy access to holy Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib, we will be sending Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri as Government of India's representatives for the event.”

A long-pending demand of the Sikh community to build a religious corridor linking India's border district of Gurdaspur with a historic gurudwara in Pakistan may finally be fulfilled with both the countries announcing that stretches would be developed in their respective areas.

Punjab CM Amarinder Singh has invited Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the speaker of the Assembly in Pakistan's Punjab province, to attend a similar ceremony on the Indian side on November 26.

The India-Pakistan ties nose-dived in recent years with no bilateral talks taking place. The ties between the two countries had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016.

India called off a meeting between Swaraj and Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, citing the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani.