Islamabad, July 15: India`s new high commissioner-designate to Pakistan Shiv Shankar Menon would arrive here today to take up his new assignment and present his credentials to President Pervez Musharraf towards the end of this month.
Menon, who formally relinquished his previous charge as ambassador to China early this week, would travel through the Wagah Border in Punjab, in the same way as his Pakistani counterpart Aziz Ahmad Khan travelled to India. According to officials at the Indian High Commission here arrangements have been made to receive Menon at the Wagah checkpost today. He would be received at Wagah, among others, by the Charge D`affaires of the Indian High Commission, T C A. Raghavan and the protocol officials of the Pakistan foreign office.

The Indian envoy`s arrival would formally restore the diplomatic links between the two countries at the top after they were severed during the height of military tensions that gripped the nuclear neighbours in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001.

After his arrival, interactions between the two countries are likely to be speeded up and the two sides expected to finalise the strengths of their staff in their respective missions, the sources said.
Bureau Report