ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: Pakistan had been impressing upon the Afghanistan government not to allow Pakistanis to join Afghan forces or get training there.

“Islamabad had also been making efforts to intercept Pakistanis travelling for such an objective to Afghanistan,” foreign office spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan told a questioner at a press briefing here on Wednesday.

He confirmed that a large number of Pakistanis, who were indicted in the country, had fled to Afghanistan and were required to be handed over to Islamabad by the Afghan government. He said there was no official information here whether there were Pakistanis among persons killed in a recent bombing attack on Afghanistan.

He denied knowledge of any request being made to Pakistani authorities for allowing bodies of eight Pakistanis to be brought back here.

Pakistan has reiterated that it was for peace with India but asserted that it required a political determination on the part of New Delhi what its aim was, as hostile and belligerent statements were frequently being made against Islamabad by senior Indian government leaders, he said.

Pakistan certainly opposed war and favoured a resumption of dialogue for peace. His attention had been drawn to a reported statement of Indian prime minister, asking Pakistan to decide once and for all whether it wanted peace or war.

The FO spokesman said that some prominent Indian (government) personalities had been demanding pro-active policy against Pakistan such as ‘hot pursuit’ and other specific actions. In the present extraordinary circumstances such hostile noises required some robust response from Pakistan to reassure its own people and the President had done that.

But the President had reaffirmed Pakistan’s desire for resumption of dialogue with India. He had also stated one could not clap with one hand and, therefore, for the dialogue to resume, a political determination on the part of India was required, he said.

Riaz Muhammad Khan said that while it was premature on his part to suggest what issues were expected to come up for discussion during the anticipated talks with UN Secretary-General’s special representative Akhdar Ibrahimi later this month, it was assumed that he would be discussing the prospects of a broad-based government and possibly a UN peacekeeping force in the war-torn country following cessation of military operations. The UN official would visit several other regional countries, including Iran.

To a question, he said about 50,000 Afghan refugees had managed to infiltrate into Pakistan over the last several weeks through unguarded routes.