ISLAMABAD: Chinese President Xi Jinping is arriving in Pakistan on Monday on a two-day visit which is expected to further stren­gthen economic and strategic relationship between the two countries.

“The Chinese president will visit Pakistan on 20-21 April 2015,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said at the weekly media briefing while confirming the dates of the long-awaited trip.

“He will be accompanied by a high-powered delegation and a number of important agreements/MoUs are expected to be signed during the visit,” she said without giving details about the agreements.

The Chinese president was originally scheduled to visit Pakistan last year, but protests in Islamabad at that time by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek against alleged rigging in the 2013 elections forced the postponement of the trip.

President Xi is expected to kick-start the $45 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which covers energy, infrastructure and trade linkage schemes and has been dubbed by Pakistani leaders a “fate-changer” for the two countries.

Under the planned CPEC, projects for generating over 6,000MW of electricity have been identified. Additionally, the railway link from Karachi to Peshawar will be upgraded and a road network linking Gwadar with China’s north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang will be constructed.

The Chinese foreign ministry had earlier said the CPEC would “serve as a driver for connectivity between South Asia and East Asia”.

During President Xi’s visit, Pakistan and China are also likely to finalise a deal for purchase of eight submarines.

KASHMIR: The FO spokesperson said Pakistan was concerned over the constant violation of Kashmiris’ fundamental rights.

She described the raising of Pakistani flag in Srinagar during a rally on Wednesday as “the manifestation of the deep and lasting emotional bonds between the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir and the people of Pakistan”.

Ms Aslam said: “It is regrettable that India chose to use excessive force against peaceful demonstrators over exercising their right to peaceful assembly.”

NYT EDITORIAL: In a belated reaction to a New York Times editorial published on April 6, the FO spokesperson said: “It is very disappointing that the newspaper has chosen to present a skewed and biased description of the South Asian security situation in its editorial.”

She said the editorial was part of the campaign to malign Pakistan’s nuclear programme through “a familiar pattern of motivated, and at times, ill-informed campaign”.

The editorial had sparked fears in Islamabad that the West after having restrained Iranian programme was readying itself to once again go after Pakistan’s programme.

“The editorial analysis by the New York Times misses out entirely on the well-established facts about introduction of nuclear weapons in South Asia. Pakistan was not the first to introduce nuclear weapons in South Asia. We were forced to develop nuclear capability purely for self-defence,” she said.

“Also, the newspaper has conveniently overlooked the question of conventional build-up and India’s aggressive military posturing, particularly the continuously increasing defence budget to $40 billion at present, cold start doctrine, pro-active operations, development of nuclear triad, introduction of nuclear weapons submarines in South Asia, development of Inter- Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and canisterisation of nuclear missiles,” the spokesperson added.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2015

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