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Tulbul-Wullar talks postponed

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Talks between India and Pakistan on the Tulbul project-Wullar barrage issue have been postponed to August at Islamabad’s request, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

A new Secretary has taken charge at the Water Resources Ministry and the request for the postponement was to give him some time, said spokesperson Tasnim Aslam.

The talks, which are part of the fourth round of the composite dialogue process, were to be held here at the end of June, but have been rescheduled for August 21 and 22, the spokesperson said.

She described as “ungrateful” statements made by a team of Indians that visited Pakistani jails recently to look for missing family members who had fought in the 1971 war that they were not allowed to visit military prisons, and that the civilian Indian prisoners they had met in the jails were in bad mental condition.

The spokesperson reiterated that Pakistan had made an “unprecedented” gesture in giving the visitors access to 10 jails across the country.

The issue of missing Indian servicemen had been investigated many times, and the Indian government had been told that there are none in Pakistan. “Our word should have been good enough,” she said.

She also stressed that Islamabad had been pressing for the early activation of a joint committee of retired judges who could make recommendations to improve conditions for cross-border prisoners in Indian and Pakistani jails.

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