ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs will meet here on Wednesday to review the country’s relationship with India and Afghanistan.

According to the agenda, the members of the committee will also be briefed by foreign ministry officials on the “situation on the Line of Control (LoC) and international border with India”.

An eight-point agenda for the meeting of the committee headed by Haji Muhammad Adeel of the Awami National Party (ANP) has been issued.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is expected to lead the team of the ministry officials giving the briefing and reply to questions of the committee’s members.

The meeting is taking place two days after both Pakistan and India, in a rare goodwill gesture, offered assistance to each other in carrying out relief operations in the rain-affected areas on both sides of the LoC in Kashmir.

The offer was first made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Pakistan made a similar offer through a statement by the Foreign Office spokesperson.

Mr Aziz had informed the National Assembly during the question hour last month that 374 incidents of violation of ceasefire on the LoC from the Indian side had been reported since July last year.

These incidents resulted in the death of five military men and five civilians and injuries to another 75 people, 57 civilians among them.

The adviser had also informed the house that India had confirmed the presence of 380 Pakistanis in its various jails against Pakistan’s claim of 486 people.

The members of the committee will also discuss a recently-signed “agreement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia regarding shifting of prisoners confined in each other’s jails”.

The committee comprises a number of senior senators, including PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq, Leader of Opposition in the House Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Jahangir Badar and Farhatullah Babar of the PPP, Babar Khan Ghouri and retired Col Tahir Mashhadi of the MQM, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of the PML-F, Mushahid Hussain Syed of the PML-Q and Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of the JUI-F.

Published in Dawn, September 10th , 2014