ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: In a sudden move the US authorities announced the closure of their Consulate-General in Karachi on Monday morning.

“The US Consulate-General in Karachi has been closed due to security reasons,” said Linda Cheatham, the US Acting

Public Affairs Officer, when contacted by Dawn here Monday. She did not indicate if it had been closed for an indefinite period.

When asked if the decision was linked to the incident in Murree she said: “I can’t tell you more at this point.” She gave a similar response to a question whether the instructions to shut down the consulate had been received from Washington.

Interestingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unaware of the closure till Monday afternoon. At the weekly news briefing the Foreign office spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, when asked about it, said the Ministry had not been informed about it yet.

Well-placed diplomatic sources maintained that the decision to close the Consulate had been taken prior to the Murree incident and it had been prompted by some threatening calls.

“We got the news of the consulate closure before we heard of the Murree incident,” a US embassy official told Dawn.

The US Consulate, sources said, had opened as usual in the morning and staff reported to work. A little later, the staff was abruptly asked to leave and told not to return until further instructions, they added.

Meanwhile, the US embassy in Islamabad and the US Consulates in Lahore and Peshawar would function normally, a senior embassy official told Dawn.

The consulate in Karachi was earlier closed in June after a car bomb exploded just outside it. However, it re-opened after a few days.