DACCA: The Foreign Minister, Mr Z.A. Bhutto, said here today [Aug 29] that India’s going ahead with the Farakka Barrage Project unilaterally was a “provocative measure against Pakistan”.

Talking to newsmen at the Dacca airport, the Minister said that Pakistan had suggested to India a Ministerial conference on the project. But he regretted that the response from India was “far from satisfactory”. He added that the conference could have been held now as sufficient technical data had already been collected on the issue. Mr Bhutto said: “We still believe India’s needs could be met without causing detriment to Pakistan by solving the issue, affecting East Pakistan vitally.”

The Minister said the Farakka issue was not an isolated one. It has basically arisen out of the strained relations with India on the Kashmir problem. The Minister said the Indian steps to go ahead with the Barrage scheme was yet another situation in which Pakistan was being made to suffer. It could be conveniently solved even at the technical experts’ level without injecting politics into it, he added. Disagreeing with the contention of India that more data about the problem should be collected to precede a Ministerial conference, the Minister said: “We could have a preliminary Ministerial one now to be followed by another”.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2014