New Delhi, September 4
Courtesy weather gods, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna last night found himself landing in Pakistan, a country which he would have wished to avoid at a time when bilateral ties are at a low.

The minister was on his way home from Dubai on board an Emirates flight while returning from a visit to Brazil when bad weather in the capital forced ATC, New Delhi, to ask the pilot to divert the plane to Karachi or elsewhere.

Krishna’s plane landed at Karachi’s Qaid-e-Azam International Airport around 2245 hrs local time and remained at the tarmac for nearly an hour. Once the Pakistani authorities came to know that Krishna was on board the aircraft, a representative of the Pakistan Foreign Office rushed to the airport but could not meet him as nobody was allowed to deplane. The Emirates flight took off for Dubai again around midnight.

The minister took an early morning flight from Dubai to reach Bangalore on his way to Hyderabad to attend the funeral of YSR.

A senior official, when contacted, described Krishna’s hour-long sojourn to the neigbouring country as an ‘absolutely routine diversion’. He emphasised that nobody had met the minister at the airport.