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| July 10, 2005 | Sunday | Jumadi-us-Sani 2, 1426 |
Pakistan team to visit Baglihar site
ISLAMABAD, July 9: A high-level Pakistani delegation would be visiting New Delhi and the site of controversial Baglihar hydropower project on the river Chenab in the occupied Kashmir in the last week of this month, Dawn has learnt. The visit is part of modalities agreed to by the Neutral Expert in consultation with India and Pakistan in June this year in Paris. The World Bank had appointed the neutral expert a few months ago to address the Baglihar dispute between the two countries.
Official sources told Dawn on Wednesday that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will preside over a meeting here on Thursday to discuss various aspects of the dispute and finalize a team for the proposed visit.
The meeting would also be attended by law and power ministers, Attorney General of Pakistan, secretaries of foreign affairs and water and power, senior officials of Pakistan’s permanent Indus Water Commission, Federal Flood Commission and Irsa.
These sources said that India was bound under the modalities finalized by the neutral expert to enable the Pakistan side to verify their facts and figures through on-site verification and related documents.
This will be followed by reports by the two governments to the neutral expert in support of their relevant cases and arguments. After examination of the relevant record and reports of the two governments, the neutral expert would lead a joint inspection team of Pakistani and Indian authorities to visit the project site in October for which an agreement was reached in June.
The sources said the Pakistani team due to visit Baglihar this month is likely to be led by Attorney General of Pakistan besides experts from Pakistan’s permanent Indus Water Commission, ministry of water and power, foreign affairs and other related agencies.
A senior government official said the meeting called by the prime minister was Baglihar-specific but taking advantage of the occasion the prime minister would also be updated on other water-related disputes with India, including the Kishanganga and Wullar barrage projects. The World Bank had appointed on May 10 this year a Swiss national, Professor Raymond Lafitte, as neutral expert on the request of Pakistan to address the differences concerning the under-construction Baglihar project on the Chenab River in India, which Pakistan believes was in violation of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty.
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