05 January 2005	Wednesday	23 Ziqa'ad 1425

NEW DELHI, Jan 4: India and Pakistan appeared to be heading for a stalemate on Tuesday in their crucial talks on the disputed Baglihar dam in Jammu and Kashmir, sources close to the talks said.

They said the Pakistan delegation, seeing this as their last of bilateral discussions on the issue, had handed six specific questions to their Indian counterpart pertaining to various structural problems the dam posed for Islamabad.

If the Indian side, expected to respond on Wednesday, satisfies the Pakistani side the issue would be treated as nearly resolved. The Pakistan side in the six-point questionnaire inquired if India had considered the Indus Water Treaty's provisions in planning the dam and gave various notes suggesting that it had not.

A Pakistani official described the questions as very technical and essentially mathematical. Effectively though, Islamabad has thus asked India if New Delhi would consider lowering the height of the dam from its proposed 450 feet into a lower weir that would not obstruct the flow of water on Chenab.

Sources close to the Indian side told Dawn that a change in the design of the dam was not likely and, they insisted, the project would go on. "We have a strong case for the dam and we can defend it in any forum," a source close to the Indian delegation claimed.

Before the two-day talks, the nine-member Pakistani delegation led by Ashfaq Mahmood, Secretary, Water and Power, called on Indian Water Resources Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and held a 20-minute meeting with him.

India's secretary of Water Resources V. K. Duggal, who heads the 12-member delegation and Pakistani High Commissioner to India Aziz Ahmed Khan were also present. Pakistan has said it would take the matter to the World Bank arbitration if the talks failed.

APP ADDS: Ashfaq Mehmood talking to newsmen said they discussed specifications of the project in detail and identified six technical points, for the first time, to move towards a resolution of the issue.

He said these points would be discussed thoroughly on Wednesday to narrow the differences. Responding to a question, the leader of the Pakistan delegation said they have come with open mind and wanted to settle the issue bilaterally but judiciously within the parameters of the Indus Water Treaty, signed by the two countries in 1960.