ISLAMABAD, March 4: Pakistan and the United States on Saturday deferred the signing of Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) following failure of the two sides to develop consensus at technical level on some clauses of the agreement.

Informed sources told Dawn on Saturday that Pakistani side had proposed amendments in certain clauses for consideration before the draft agreement was inked by the heads of the two states.

“The US side did not reply to Pakistan’s amendments in the disputed clauses. The agreement was even not discussed at proper level. They want to stick to their stand,” the sources said.

This indicated that US was not interested to even talk about the agreement at this stage, the sources said.

According to the sources, initially there was understanding between the two sides that the draft text would be initialled at this stage while the remaining articles would be finalized in the next meeting.

The sources said that the remaining issues would now be sorted out at technical level meetings. The next meeting was scheduled to be held in Washington, the sources said, adding that it seemed that the agreement would now be finalized in next round of meetings. The date for next meeting would be finalized later on.

The issues to be discussed included the definition of some key terms, scope of the treaty, effective implementation of intellectual property rights (IPRs) laws in Pakistan, extent of indirect expropriation and compensation mechanism, the non-confirming issues, taxation and tariff on US investment and regulatory issues; extents of subjects for arbitration and the performance requirements in the light of World Trade Organization, added the sources.