ALGIERS: Pakistan played a vital and important role in saving the situation created by the June 19 Algerian coup which had almost wrecked the Second Afro-Asian Conference. Events started moving in the right direction with the arrival of Foreign Minister Z.A. Bhutto here yesterday [June 26], who lost no time in meeting his Chinese, Indonesian and Algerian counterparts, Marshal Chen Yi, Dr Subandrio, and Mr Abdel Aziz Bouteflika.

Mr Bhutto landed here at 10 in the morning and by 4 pm Pakistan’s plan to save the threatened conference was accepted. Pakistan expressed the view that the question of postponing the summit should be decided by the 15-member Steering Committee instead of a meeting of foreign ministers scheduled for 4 the same afternoon at the bomb-scarred Club des Pines. Mr Bhutto put forward the view that a truncated Foreign Ministers’ meeting would serve no purpose. On the other hand, it would have given India and others a handle to create division in Afro-Asian ranks on such questions as the participation issue.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies from Lahore] the construction of a fish harbour at Gwadur coastal area now seems to be a remote possibility as the Planning Commission has withheld sanction for the project, it is reliably learnt here. The Fisheries Department, West Pakistan, was understood to have sent a Rs 4 crore scheme for the construction of a fish harbour at Gwadur last year in order to give a fillip to fisheries production in the province. The Commission appointed a high-powered committee to study the scheme and report on its feasibility. The committee, in its recommendation, observed that the construction of a fish harbour at Gwadur would prove useful. The Commission, however, did not accord sanction to the project.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2015

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