Two Indian ministers to visit Pakistan for Kartarpur ceremony
Indian External Affairs Minister will send two Sikh Union Ministers for the ceremony.
Dubai: India will be sending two Union ministers to Pakistan for the opening of the much-publicised Kartarpur corridor. On Saturday night, India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took to Twitter to inform Pakistan that she was unable to travel to Kartarpur and was instead sending two Sikh Union Ministers, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri to attend the ceremony.
Prime Minister Imran Khan will lay foundation stone for Kartarpur corridor on November 28
@SushmaSwaraj thanked Pakistan for the invitation and tweeted: “I thank His Excellency Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi Foreign Minister of Pakistan for inviting me to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor on the Pakistan side of the International boundary on 28 November 2018.”
@SushmaSwaraj added: “Since I am unable to travel to Kartarpur Sahib on the scheduled date, Government of India will be represented by my esteemed colleagues Mrs. Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Mr. HS Puri.”
In a third tweet she wrote: “We hope that the Government of Pakistan will expedite construction of the corridor in order to ensure that our citizens can pay their respects at the Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib using the corridor as soon as possible.”
According to Indian newspaper, Financial Times: “[A] day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of Berlin Wall fall to point out the potentially transformative nature of development in the Kartarpur corridor between the two nations, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi invited External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to attend the ground-breaking ceremony at Kartarpur on November 28. The ceremony will also be attended by Pakistan PM Imran Khan.”
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Swaraj also called out a couple of Indian journalists for misinterpretation of her statement and spreading misinformation in Twitter.
She tweeted: “Please do not spread misinformation. We welcome this proposal and we are sending two Ministers to represent Government of India.”
Journalist Nidhi Razdan apologised and deleted the tweet, replacing it with another tweet with complete information.
@SushmaSwaraj later replied to Razdan: “Thanks for prompt correction Nidhi.”