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France has closed down its consulate in Karachi and asked its staff to return home, two months after a deadly suicide bombing killed 16 of its technicians working on a submarine project in the port city, media reported on Wednesday.
The decision followed a report from French experts that the consulate in the city's high-end Bath Island district was in an 'unsafe' location, Pakistani daily The News reported, quoting reliable sources.
The issuance of visa from the mission has been suspended for an indefinite period. French visas would now be issued from Islamabad, the report said.
According to the report, the French security experts had suggested that the consulate should be shifted to a place which was not a 'common passage or easily accessible to the unconcerned people or vehicular traffic', the paper said.
The offices of the French consul-general and attache for press and political affairs were temporarily shifted to the British consulate in Karachi, the daily said.
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