Pakistan aware of India's anti-CPEC cell, says foreign office

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal said on Thursday that Indian officials’ statements about Pakistan China Economic Corridor (CPEC) are evident of an active cell established to sabotage the CPEC. 

In a weekly briefing, the spokesperson said that the Indian officials’ statements against the CPEC pose a threat to the regional peace. However, Pakistan is capable of giving befitting response to any hostile campaign, he maintained.

The CPEC is to bring economical prosperity in the region, he underlined.

It merits highlighting here that Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Zubair Mehmood Hayat recently said that India was fanning terrorism in Balochistan and established a special cell at a cost of $500 million to sabotage the CPEC.

Faisal said Pakistan offered to arrange a meeting of convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife purely on the humanitarian grounds, adding, a note verbale to this effect has also been dispatched to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

He said a protest has been lodged with Indian deputy high commissioner on Wednesday (yesterday) over the rising number of cross-border attacks in Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK). “The Indian forces violated the truce along Line of Control (LoC) as many as 1300 times in the current year,” he remarked.

The Indian diplomat has been urged to respect the ceasefire accord and investigate the violation, he underlined.

He said India has yet to make a response on the issue of Lt Colonel (retd) Habib Zahir, who went missing in Nepal earlier this year. “The website which offered Habib the job in Nepal was operated from India,” he added.

On the occasion, the FO’s South Asia chief also condemned the cross border attack from Afghanistan, claiming lives of two Pakistani soldiers, and said the Afghan Charge d’affaires has also been summoned and a protest was registered over the incident.

Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir

Faisal reiterated Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir that solution to Kashmir issue is only negotiations. He said the country could not step back from its stance and the issue could not be resolved without taking all three parties into confidence.

“Around 800 Kashmiris are still in Indian prison,” he said.