ISLAMABAD, Feb 15: Pakistan urged India on Saturday to agree to Islamabad’s offer for reciprocal issue of visas to their new acting high commissioners named to replace their expelled predecessors.

The Pakistani call came in a statement by a foreign ministry spokesman who denied Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha’s allegation that Islamabad had refused a visa to New Delhi’s new deputy high commissioner.

The spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, expressed surprise at Mr Sinha’s reported charge made while talking to reporters in the Indian town of Hazaribagh after the tit-for-tat expulsion of acting high commissioners and other staffers last week on spying charges that each side denies.

The spokesman clarified that in fact Pakistan had already offered reciprocal issuance of assignment visas to the deputy high commissioners-designate as well as reciprocal exchange of pending visas within a new staff ceiling of 47 that, he said, had been arbitrarily fixed by India.

He said the Pakistani government had earlier proposed reciprocal exchange of pending assignment visas on Feb 7, but the Indian government had not responded to the proposal. He hoped New Delhi would give a positive response to the arrangement proposed by Pakistan.

Mr Khan confirmed that Pakistan had named Munawar Saeed Batty as its deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to replace Jaleel Abbas Jilani, who was expelled by the Indian government along with four other officials of his mission on Feb 8.

Islamabad retaliated by expelling Mr Jilani’s Indian counterpart, Sudhir Vyas, and four other officials of the Indian high commission. New Delhi has named T.C.A. Raghavan to replace Mr Vyas.