India Today : Oct 20, 2019, 09:22 AM
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday claimed that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had accepted his government's invite to attend the Kartarpur Corridor opening ceremony. Qureshi also claimed that Manmohan Singh wrote him a letter in which he said he would "come as an ordinary man, not as a chief guest"."I had invited former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. I am thankful to him, he wrote me a letter and said, 'I will come but not as a chief guest but an ordinary man'," news agency ANI quoted Shah Mehmood Qureshi as saying."We will welcome him [Manmohan Singh] even if he comes as an ordinary man," the Pakistan foreign minister said.Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had on October 10 formally invited Manmohan Singh for the inaugural ceremony of the landmark Kartarpur Corridor, scheduled in November. The opening of the Kartarpur Corridor has been scheduled for November 9, 2019.Earlier, a section of media had claimed that Manmohan Singh had accepted Pakistan's invite to attend the Kartarpur Corridor opening ceremony. Then, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had clarified that the former prime minister would not go to Pakistan for the opening ceremony.An official spokesperson had also clarified on the matter, saying "The fact was that Manmohan Singh had accepted Captain Amarinder's invitation to join the 'jatha' [delegation] to the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara to pay obeisance at the historic gurdwara across the border on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji".The former prime minister's office, too, said it has no information about the invite.