ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: All French engineers required for the construction of Agosta submarines are back in Pakistan to resume work at the naval facility near Karachi under strict security, well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday.
Inter-Service Public Relations Director-General Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi told Dawn on Saturday that some French technicians had come to work on the submarine project without specifying their number and arrival date. “I have no such details,” he said when pressed by this correspondent.
Diplomatic sources said that all French marine engineers crucial to the project’s completion had returned to Karachi before the French foreign minister’s visit to Pakistan earlier this month. “The French and Pakistan governments had decided to remain tight-lipped about it because of security reasons,” sources said.
The foreign ministry had also avoided confirming the return of French workers at its weekly news briefings.
Sources said the French intelligence chief had visited Pakistan before the return of the technicians to assess the security situation and had discussed special security measures with the Pakistani agencies.
Another source told Dawn that in order to guard against any security lapses, the French authorities had deployed their own personnel to provide protection to the technicians.
“If the French are targeted again, it will be the end of French cooperation on this project,” a French reporter associated with daily Libert’e commented.
The reporter, who was in Pakistan last week, pointed out that the French government’s decision to send back its technicians had met with stiff opposition from the construction company’s union and the public at large.
“It is a big risk that the French government has taken because it wants a strategic alliance with Pakistan. However, if anything happens now there will be no second chance,” he said.
A French defence delegation is currently in Pakistan to review progress on the project. The delegates include top representatives of France’s Direction des Constructions Navales, the firm assisting Pakistan in the construction of Agosta-90B submarines.
French engineers and other staff working on Agosta were pulled out of Pakistan after the May 8 terrorist attack that had killed 11 French naval personnel and wounded another two dozen workers in Karachi.
Though shocked by the attack, the French defence minister had announced later that France would continue its military cooperation with Pakistan without giving a precise date of the resumption of the mission.
Notably, the French foreign minister did not mention a word during his visit to Pakistan about the Agosta submarine project at the press conference here.