Talks with India likely to resume after Eid: FO: Baglihar meeting under way in Paris
By Qudssia Akhlaque
ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Pakistan and India appear all set to resume composite dialogue later this month, soon after Eidul Fitr, with a review meeting of foreign secretaries in New Delhi.
“Foreign secretaries have been in contact with each other and they have exchanged some ideas,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told a weekly news briefing on Monday. “The likely time for foreign secretaries review meeting is anytime after Ramazan,” she said.
Responding to a question, she held out the assurance that Pakistan would take action if Indian government provided evidence of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai train bomb blasts. However, she made it clear that there had been no talk about handing over anybody to India.
The spokesperson said the latest Indian charges levelled against Pakistan like the earlier accusations were propagandist and not based on facts. “This is all internal. We also feel such allegations are yet another effort to externalise the internal malaise,” Ms Aslam asserted.
The spokesperson, however, mentioned that the Indian foreign secretary had talked about providing evidence to Pakistan and added: “We have not received anything as yet.”
BAGLIHAR: Ms Aslam said that a meeting on the Baglihar dam dispute was under way in Paris.
She said the World Bank’s neutral expert was likely to give “preliminary assessment” to the two delegations with a timeline for forwarding their comments.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Ms Aslam expressed reservations on the Amnesty International (AI) report regarding violations of human rights during investigations of the London terror plot in Pakistan.
“These issues are of concern to everyone and our effort as a government is to ensure a balance as on the one hand there are individual rights and on the other hand we have the most fundamental right to life under threat,” she observed, adding that sometimes decisions were taken in the larger public interest.
“Some aspects of this report also seem to be based on hearsay,” Ms Aslam said, pointing to the claim that after 7/7 terror attacks in London several hundred foreign students, clerics and members of Islamic groups were arrested in Pakistan and they just disappeared.
Rejecting the assertion, she argued that had there been such mass-scale disappearances the national media would have reported it.
LOYA JIRGA: Ms Aslam said there was no timeframe for holding of Loya Jirga in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It would be discussed through diplomatic channels, she added.
