Indian realtor bids for one of Pakistan's embassy buildings in Washington

A cash-strapped Pakistan is auctioning one of its properties that housed the defence section of the country's embassy in Washington, United States. What's even more interesting is that one of the top three bids received by the Pakistan embassy was from an Indian realtor.

The Indian realtor, whose identity is yet to be revealed, bid five million dollars for the property on the elite R Street NW locality of Washington. But the highest bid was that of a Jewish group, which bid 6.8 million dollars for the building. The Jewish group wants to convert the building, which till the early 2000s housed the embassy's defence section, into a synagogue.

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The building has been lying vacant for the last two decades. Its diplomatic status was revoked in 2018, following which it became liable to local taxes. A cornered Islamabad is yet to take a call on what to do next. According to local media reports, the Pakistani government will be taking into account the country's interests before considering either of the proposals. However, Islamabad seems open to the idea of the building being used as a place of worship.

Local media cited government sources as denying reports that the country had been forced to sell off the building as it was short on funds to pay salaries to its staff and had been bleeding resources on the upkeep of the structure and paying local taxes. 

The country also owns a building near the Indian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. That building housed the old Pakistan embassy till the new diplomatic outpost was constructed a few blocks away in the R Street NW locality in the early 2000s. For obvious reasons, Islamabad even spent close to a whopping seven million dollars to renovate the old embassy building. That move now seems to be backfiring.

At the same time, Pakistan media has time and again lamented the dilapidated state of the Pakistan embassy building at R Street NW locality. In fact, according to a report in Pakistani media outlet Dawn, local residents even approached Washington city authorities, terming the structure as a security hazard and seeking that it be either renovated or razed.

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Image Source: NCinDC/Flickr

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• Pakistan
• Washington