ISLAMABAD, Jan 10: Pakistan on Monday cautioned India that its failure to come to a settlement on the Bagilhar dam issue in the last round of talks in New Delhi would have an indirect impact on the ongoing political talks on Jammu and Kashmir and peace and security.
Answering questions at his weekly news briefing, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said he believed that there was a relationship between the talks on the Baglihar dam and the composite dialogue.
He said that lack of a positive result of last week's Baglihar talks had a 'demonstrative effect' on the whole process of composite dialogue as scheduled during the course of this year.
He, however, categorically stated that the impasse in Baglihar talks in no way meant a "collapse of the confidence-building measures or the bilateral composite dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir and peace and security issues" and said that both the processes were continuing and were on track.
He pointed out that recently the foreign secretaries of the two governments had met and chalked out a schedule of talks at various levels on the remaining six agenda items, between April and June this year, and these talks would culminate in rounds of talks between the two foreign secretaries on Jammu and Kashmir and peace and security.
In the near future, Mr Khan said, the prime ministers of the two countries might meet on the sidelines of the next Saarc summit in Dhaka (tentatively scheduled from February 7 to 9).
Also, he said, Pakistan had invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit this country and the dates of Foreign Minister Natwar Singh's visit to Pakistan were being negotiated.
Mr Khan said that the failure of New Delhi talks did betray a widening deficit of trust between the two sides to resolve the contentions issues and disputes. The minimum requirement which Pakistan sought from India, he maintained, was to categorically undertake to stop or suspend the new construction at the Baglihar dam so long as no agreement was reached between them.
He said that India's design to raise the height of the dam to a higher level would interfere with Pakistan's acknowledged right to draw the whole of River Chenab's waters under the 1960 Indus Basin Treaty signed by the two sides and endorsed by the World Bank which facilitated construction and funds for several important big dams (Mangla and Tarbela).
The spokesman avoided to comment when Pakistan would take the Baglihar dam dispute to the World Bank to secure its legitimate right to the Chenab water, and indicated that the level of talks on the dam issue might be raised to a higher political level at the scheduled meetings to be held early this year at the leadership plane and between the foreign ministers of the two countries.
However, he reiterated that India must, in the meantime, stop or suspend the new construction at the Baglihar site to keep the direct bilateral talks alive. Asked how long Pakistan might take to raise the dam issue with the World Bank, the spokesman said that in the course of time, Islamabad would prepare its case supported by facts and figures which had been debated with India during the last several years in detail and comprehensively. He did not set any time-frame even when pressed hard by newsmen.
