ISLAMAMBAD: Pakistani Foreign Office, Tuesday confirmed the rescheduling of the foreign secretary level talks, however, he did not divulge further neither confirmed the date of meeting.
“I don’t have anything else apart from the statement issued by the PMO yesterday,” Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary said.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar was scheduled to travel to Islamabad to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary on Friday but both the countries announced deferment of the talks with “mutual consent” to “very near future”.
“Both countries are in touch and new dates for the talks would be finalised soon”, Aziz said at a breakfast meeting here with Chinese scholars, diplomats as well as journalists.
Indian investigators had said they had traced phone contact between the attackers of the Pathankot airbase and members of the Jaish-i-Mohammad and the phone numbers were provided to Pakistan.
Not only Pakistani but Indian media also aired news items on detention, arrest and questioning of Masood Azhar, his brother Mufti Abdul Rauf, brother-in-law Ashfaq Ahmed along with 10 other terrorists.
On Wednesday, Pakistani media had reported that the JeM chief, known for his close ties with Pakistani intelligence agencies, was taken to an undisclosed destination and was questioned as part of a crackdown.
Pakistan has said it is clamping down on Azhar’s group, which India has long accused Pakistani authorities of tolerating, while it investigates Indian assertions that the January 2 attack on the Pathankot airbase was the work of the Pakistan-based militants.
The MEA once again said that it has no confirmation on the arrest of Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
At the same time, the two neighbouring countries made it clear that the Indo-Pak peace process is on track and Islamabad and New Delhi would never allow terrorists to set the agenda.
India has demanded that the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan take action against Jaish-e-Mohammad in the wake of the Pathankot attack. Pakistan banned the group in 2002, the year after it was blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament that took the two neighbors to the brink of war.
The spokesman welcomed Pakistan’s announcement on Wednesday that JeM activists had been arrested and its offices sealed.
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