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No meeting fixed with India FM, says Pak

May 06, 2010 21:50 IST

Pakistan on Thursday said no meeting has been fixed as yet between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan to take forward the bilateral process.

Responding to a question during the weekly news briefing, foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit said no meeting between the foreign ministers had been fixed, in the wake of the decision by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to revive the peace process between the two countries.

"As the prime ministers agreed (on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit) in Thimphu, Pakistan would like the foreign ministers to meet as soon as possible in order to nudge the peace process forward," he said.

Replying to a question on Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's recent remarks that over 30 million acre feet of water is either mismanaged or wasted within Pakistan, Basit contended that mismanagement of water and India's alleged violations of the Indus Waters Treaty were two separate issues.

"Let me make it very clear that the foreign minister never said that India is not in violation of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. What he said was that India's violation of the treaty and water management inside Pakistan are two different issues," he said.

"These two issues should be dealt with separately because they are two different problems," he added.

The Pakistan government is 'seized' of India's alleged violations of the Indus Waters Treaty and has "already moved in accordance with the dispute settlement mechanism as provided for in the treaty," Basit said.

Basit said projects being built by India on several rivers, including the Kishanganga project, were a matter of concern for Pakistan.

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