 "Kartarpur corridor pact renewed: What is it and what's behind the timing?")
India and Pakistan on Tuesday extended the agreement on the Sri Kartarpur Sahib Corridor for another five years, as announced by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) amid some initial signs of a thaw in India-Pakistan relations.
"It has been agreed between India and Pakistan through diplomatic channels to extend the validity of the agreement on Sri Kartarpur Sahib Corridor for a further period of five years," the MEA stated in a release, adding, "Extension of the validity of this agreement will ensure uninterrupted operation of the corridor for use by the pilgrims from India to visit the holy gurdwara in Pakistan."
In response to continuous requests from pilgrims concerning the removal of the $20 service charge that Pakistan levies on each pilgrim for every visit, India also once again appealed to Pakistan to waive any fees for the pilgrims, added the MEA.
What is the Sri Kartarpur Sahib Corridor agreement?
On October 24, 2019, India and Pakistan signed an agreement for the facilitation of pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Narowal, Pakistan.
The agreement was signed to fulfil the long-standing demand of pilgrims to have easy and smooth access to the gurdwara and to operationalise the corridor in time for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus.
The agreement provides for visa-free travel of Indian pilgrims, as well as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders, from India to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Pakistan on a daily basis, throughout the year.
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However, all pilgrims travelling to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur are required to return the same day.
Under the agreement, there is no restriction on the faith of the pilgrims who travel through the corridor.
According to information provided by the MEA, up to 5,000 pilgrims can visit the gurdwara through the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor each day.
Even though Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur is visible from the Indian side, previously, pilgrims from India had to travel to Lahore by bus to reach Kartarpur, a 125-kilometre (km) journey.
While India has consistently urged Pakistan that it should consider the wishes of the pilgrims by not levying any fee or charge on those who visit the gurdwara through the corridor, Pakistan continues to levy $20 on every pilgrim for each visit.
What is the Kartarpur Corridor?
The Kartarpur Corridor serves as a visa-free border crossing and religious corridor, linking the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur near Narowal in Pakistan to Gurdwara Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab's Gurdaspur district in India.
The crossing permits pilgrims to visit the gurdwara in Pakistan, located 4.7 km from the India–Pakistan border.
The Indian part of the corridor involves a 4.1-km-long, four-lane highway from Dera Baba Nanak to the international border. A state of the art passenger terminal building is also located at the international border.
However, Pakistani Sikhs do not have access to this corridor and cannot visit Dera Baba Nanak in India without first obtaining an Indian visa.
The corridor was initially proposed in early 1999 by the then Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif, as part of the Delhi–Lahore Bus diplomacy initiative.
On November 26, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the corridor in India. Just days later, Pakistan's then Prime Minister, Imran Khan, performed a similar ceremony on the Pakistani side.
The corridor was completed in time for the 550th anniversary of Guru Nanak's birth on November 12, 2019.
Prime Minister Modi has compared the decision to build the corridor to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, noting that the initiative could help reduce tensions between the two nations.
Are there any controversies surrounding the corridor?
In November 2019, less than a week after the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, Indian intelligence agencies reportedly spotted terrorist training activities in Narowal, a border district in Pakistan's Punjab province.
Narowal is the same district where the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is located.
Citing sources, an Indian national daily had reported that terrorist training camps were found at Muridke, Shakargarh, and Narowal in Pakistan's Punjab province. According to the report, a "substantial number" of men and women were "undergoing training" at these camps.
Just a day before the corridor's opening, controversy had erupted over an exhibit reportedly installed at the gurudwara site by Pakistani authorities.
Pakistani authorities reportedly placed an exhibit featuring a small bomb, placed within a glass case, which they claimed was dropped on the shrine by the Indian Air Force during the 1971 war. A board placed next to the exhibit stated: "Indian Air Force dropped this bomb during 1971 at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Sri Kartarpur Sahib with the aim to destroy it."
Just days earlier, another controversy had erupted when a song released by Pakistan to mark the corridor's opening featured posters of Khalistani separatist leaders.
What about the timing of Kartarpur Sahib Corridor pact renewal?
The pact's renewal comes after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's recent visit to Pakistan to participate in the 23rd Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government.
With no untoward incident occurring, government sources told a national daily that New Delhi viewed Jaishankar's visit, the first by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nearly nine years, as a positive development.
Despite the absence of any formal bilateral meetings during the visit, Jaishankar reportedly had "casual conversations" with both Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his counterpart Ishaq Dar.
However, both New Delhi and Islamabad denied that there were any proposals for resuming dialogue. According to one report, India's position is that any substantive engagement between the two countries will require Pakistan to first reappoint its high commissioner.
Relations between the two countries have been frozen since 2015, and worsened after Pakistan recalled its high commissioner in August 2019 following New Delhi's decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir's special status.