Pakistan on Thursday said no date had been fixed for the inauguration of Kartarpur corridor from Narowal in the country’s Punjab province to the Indian state of Punjab.
The project has to be completed before the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak Dev on November 9. It will connect connect Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab with the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in the Kartarpur area, where Nanak is supposed to have settled after his travels. The corridor will allow Indian Sikh devotees to travel to the pilgrimage site without visas.
“We will update you on the progress of the Kartarpur corridor,” Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said during his weekly briefing. “We have formally invited former [Indian] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the inauguration.”
He said the project was expected to be completed on time, adding that work was going on fast. “The opening will be on time as committed by the prime minister [Imran Khan].”
On September 30, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had announced that the government had decided to invite Manmohan Singh for the inauguration event.
On September 16, Project Director Atif Majid had said 86% of the work had been completed. India’s Additional Secretary of Home Ministry Govind Mohan, who had gone to Gurdaspur in Punjab to inspect the construction work, said the corridor would be open from November 11. India and Pakistan laid the foundation stone of the project last November.
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