ISLAMABAD, May 5: As the Supreme Court resumes on Tuesday proceedings in the Reko Diq mining case, Pakistan has approached the Australian government requesting it not to extend protection to any company which does not have an Australian investor.

Advocate Ahmed Bilal Soofi, who is representing the Balochistan government, told Dawn on Saturday that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources had written a letter to Australia two weeks ago seeking legal opinion of the Australian government on extending the benefit of the bilateral investment treaty to the Tethyan Copper Company-Australia (TCCA) when the firm did not have any investor belonging to Australia.

“Extending benefit of the treaty means giving all kinds of international protection to investors,” he explained.

The Tethyan Copper Company-Pakistan (TCCP) is a Canadian and Chilean consortium of Barrick Gold and Antofagasta Minerals formed to explore gold and copper at Reko Diq, a small desert town in Chagai district of Balochistan that sits over the world’s fifth largest deposit of gold and copper.

The TCCA is one of the components of TCCP which has invoked the jurisdiction of the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) and the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) against prospective Reko Diq minerals licence.

The ICC of Paris (France) is seized with the dispute between the TCCP and the Balochistan government over the latter’s rejection of mining lease to the company for exploration at the Reko Diq.

The TCCP has also filed a request for arbitration at the ICSID in Washington against the federal government.

A three-judge SC bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez will take up a plea by Dr Abdul Haq Baloch, one of the petitioners in the main Reko Diq case, seeking initiation of criminal proceedings against the Balochistan government for violating the May 25, 2011, order of the apex court.