India, Pakistan agree to resolve harassment of diplomats row
New Delhi: In a huge diplomatic breakthrough, both India and Pakistan jointly announced late on Friday that they had agreed to resolve the diplomat harassment row that had been severely affecting bilateral ties.
In identical statements issued at the same time from both New Delhi by the MEA and Islamabad by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, the two sides said, “India and Pakistan have mutually agreed to resolve matters related to the treatment of diplomats and diplomatic premises, in line with the 1992 ‘Code of Conduct for the treatment of diplomatic/consular personnel in India and Pakistan’. The resolution comes as a glimmer of hope that the two sides can work at repairing ties that have hit rock-bottom in the past two years.
This also comes in the wake of both countries having alleged recently that their diplomats were being harassed by the other side. The row was also resolved after both sides issued note verbales to each other.
The row had hit the headlines this month on March 11 after Pakistan shared details of the row with the Pakistani media. India declined to go public on the spat but Indian Government sources had subsequently said that Indian diplomats had been facing harassment in Islamabad for more than a year.