Wednesday, October 5 2005 16:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Karachi: It was a 'nostalgic' trip for External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh as he visited this port city of Pakistan after 23 years.

Singh, whose earlier tryst with the commercial capital of Pakistan was as a diplomat posted in the Indian Consulate here, revisited the memories as he met a number of his old acquaintances.

The interactions were purely marked by recall of their association with the Pakistani friends of the Indian Minister saying what they had been doing so far and are currently engaged in.

"It is nostalgic," Singh summed up his feelings about being here again.

He said he had seen some landmarks in the city which had changed a great deal 'but for the better."

"It has been ages since we met," Orooj Ahmad Ali, a septuagenarian resident of Karachi, told Singh at the meeting.

"I know Natwar before as the High Commissioner," said Sardar Sherbaz Khan Mazari after the interaction.

The delegation included journalists, doctors and social activists.

They expressed happiness at the move to reopen Indian consulate in Karachi in January next year.

"It is a good beginning," said Mazari about the consulate which was closed down in 1994.

The consulate had earlier also been closed down after the 1965 war and was reopened after the Simla Agreement post-1971 war.

The consulate building, currently under renovation, which was visited by the minister, was actually the property of Nawab of Junagarh. He had sold it to his neighbour Shahnawaz Bhutto who in turn sold it to the Indian High Commission.

Orooj hoped the current bonhomie between the two countries would result in lasting peace and friendship.

Singh also met delegations of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Peoples Party and discussed the ongoing peace process. Leaders of both the parties expressed happiness over improvement in relations between the two countries.