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  • Feb 1st, 2005
  • Comments Off on Mini-summit to give push to Pak-India dialogue, no cut-off date for gas line
The proposed Pak-India mini-summit to coincide with the 13th conference of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation's (Saarc) chief political administrators at Dhaka next week will go over the progress made by the bilateral composite dialogue between the two countries as well as the Baglihar dam that poses to be a "spanner in the works". The mini-summit between Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh is likely to take place either on January 6 or the following day that will be the last day of the Saarc meeting.

They would also to go over the timetable drawn by officials for the meetings of eight working groups during the second round of ongoing composite dialogue that is expected to start from April and last until the middle of the year.

Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan hoped the mini-summit will give a push to the dialogue process that flowed out of direct contacts between the Pakistani and Indian leaders during the 12th Saarc summit at Islamabad early last year.

He gave details of the meetings that will prepare the way for the summit, saying the programme committee comprising foreign ministry officials of member nations. They will be meeting from Tuesday at Dhaka to be followed by the standing committee consisting of the foreign secretaries.

The council of ministers at which the foreign ministers sit will meet on February 5 to finalise the agenda of the summit and heads of the states and governments is schedule to meet on Sunday and Monday.

The home delegation will be led by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who will be accompanied by foreign minister Khurshid M. Kasuri.

An important gesture at the conference will be the shifting of the chairmanship of the Saarc from Pakistan to Bangladesh, the host nation. Another important item on the agenda will be the proposed South Asian Free Trade Agreement that is to take effect from next year but currently is facing some roadblocks because of lack of agreement between Islamabad and New Delhi on slackening of tariff rules on certain commodities.

The mini-summit might also lend a helping hand in removing those causes that may pave the way over the year for an early agreement.

Replying to a question, Masood Khan denied that Pakistan had set a cut-off date by which if India did not accept the extension of Pak-Iran gas pipeline project, it will urge Iran to move ahead.

He said Pakistan and Iran had been discussing the project but no one has proposed a timeframe for the completion of negotiations.

He said the trans-Pakistan gas pipeline projects were an "energy corridors" that will benefit consumers in Pakistan and India.

He also hoped that it would be possible for Dr Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan in March or immediately later and help in moving the dialogue processes on all issues.

Answering another question on the current tensions between Iran and the United States, Masood Khan said Pakistan had good relations with Iran as well as the US and was trying to help defuse the situation.

Masood Khan reiterated the Pakistani stand on the start of a bus service between Muzaffarabad and occupied Srinagar, saying that a mechanism for travel of Kashmiris between the two territories other than the Indian insistence that they do so on Indian passports had to be found out. He described the bus service a good idea and said it would help in strengthening the confidence-building measures.

Masood Khan rejected a suggestion carried in a news report that Pakistan and Israel were in secret contacts. Discussing the Pakistani move on the Baglihar dam that India was building upstream River Chenab, Masood Khan clarified that the World Bank, now seized with the complaint, had asked for some documents so that it would know that all avenues provided in the Indus Basin Treaty had been exhausted which it had now.

However, he said the bank had nowhere commented on the merits of the case and rather while announcing the receipt of the Pakistani case it had left it for the neutral expert to make up his mind on the issue.

He also hoped the matter might be discussed further with James D. Wolfensohn, the outgoing President of the World Bank, during his visit to Pakistan during the next week.

Under his revised programme, Wolfensohn is to arrive here next Sunday and stay until Wednesday.

Masood Khan told a questioner that according to the latest tally, there were still 49 Pakistanis in the Afghan jails and rest has returned home. He said the government was still in contact with authorities in Kabul.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2005


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