Islamabad: India's new High Commissioner-designate to Pakistan Shiv Shankar Menon would arrive in Islamabad on July 15 to take up his new assignment and present his credentials to President Pervez Musharraf towards the end of July.

Menon, who formally relinquished his previous charge as Ambassador to China early last 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 in Islamabad, arrangements have been made to receive Menon at the Wagah check post on July 15. 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.

Menon, they said, was expected to submit his credentials towards the end of July to Musharraf, who is leaving on a 10-day tour of three African countries Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria on July 14.

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.

PTI