Pakistan, India sign visa agreement

Shedding a prolonged atmosphere of despair and pessimism, Pakistan and India on Saturday signed a liberalized visa agreement to facilitate promotion of trade between the two nuclear rivals as well as enabling split families in the two divided nations to get together with ease. The agreement was signed by the Indian Minister of External Affairs S. M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar. Under the new visa arrangements, multiple visas will be issued to businesspeople for a period between one and three years. The divided families will also be facilitated and so will be the spouses. The two sides have also agreed to issue visas to promote tourism. While more details of the agreement were yet to be unveiled, the two ministers were co-chairing plenary session of the Pak-India Joint Commission. Earlier, they held much-awaited ministerial level talks and reviewed progress made on the bilateral relations on all the disputed issues since last year. They also held one-on-one meetings where they discussed issues of mutual interest. The state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said that the delegation level talks covered various issues including, peace, security and confidence building measures, Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen Glacier, Sir Creek, visa procedures and economic cooperation. The Indian minister on Friday night held meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf with whom he discussed a whole range of issues including the confidence building measures.