ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: The World Bank-appointed neutral expert on controversial Baglihar hydroelectric power project has invited Pakistani and Indian water experts to a final three-day meeting in Washington on Nov 7 to hear arguments from both sides to finalise verdict that he would release before the end of December.

His determination will be final and binding under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty (of 1960), an official at the ministry of water and power said on Friday. Pakistan, he said, had already dispatched comments on the draft of findings shared by neutral expert Prof Raymond Lafitte with India and Pakistan recently.

Both sides were required to file their comments on the draft of final determination by the Oct 26 deadline and Pakistan had sent its comments well ahead of it, the official said. Mr Lafitte had told Pakistan and India in Paris earlier this month that he would give his final determination before the end of December 2006.

The official said a team, comprising Pakistan’s attorney-general, secretary water and power and representatives of the ministries of law and foreign affairs and the Pakistan Indus Commission, would leave for Washington next week to attend the three-day (Nov 7-9) hearing. He said that both sides had pledged not to comment publicly or privately on draft final determination .

When asked to comment on a recent report originating from Srinagar according to which an unnamed Indian official was quoted as saying that the neutral expert had rejected Islamabad’s contention that New Delhi had violated the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, officials of the ministry of water and power in Islamabad declined to comment and said that the final determination would be the ‘real thing’, adding that they did not believe in the veracity of media reports.

The official said Pakistan had ‘physically proved’ its technical points through a ‘trial run of a model project’ and that the Indian model had ‘fizzled out’.