ISLAMABAD, July 24: In yet another fence-mending move Pakistan on Thursday formally conveyed to India its readiness
to start talks on early resump-tion of the suspended train service between Lahore and New Delhi.
“Pakistan has today formally proposed to India the resumption of Samjhota Express,” the Foreign Office spokesman announced on Thursday.
Pakistan has proposed that the railway authorities of the two countries should meet at the earliest to finalize the arrangements, for speedy resumption of the train service between Lahore and New Delhi, the spokesman said.
The proposal was conveyed to the Indian ministry of external affairs through the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi.
The announcement by Pakistan comes a day after the Railways minister told journalists that Pakistan was fully prepared to revive rail links with India and was just waiting for the green signal from the Foreign Office.
Last week, agreed to India’s latter’s proposal to start technical-level talks on resumption of air services and overflights. Pakistan also offered to host expert-level talks between the civil aviation authorities of the two countries.
However there has not yet been any confirmation from India about the resumption of flights between the two countries.
In February last year, India had approached Pakistan with a proposal to re-start rail freight services, but Pakistan insisted that passenger and goods traffic should be revived simultaneously.
