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Pakistan to involve WB on Baghliar Dam dispute: spokesman
ISLAMABAD Jan 01 : Pakistan plans to seek World Bank’s intervention for the resolution of the outstanding Baglihar Dam dispute with India, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan Saturday told private GEO television.
Reacting to a statement from the India, Khan said that Pakistan had decided to give a final chance to India till Jan. 6. Khan said the last meeting between Pakistan and India to resolve the dispute would be held from Jan. 4 to 6 and that Pakistani Water and Power Secretary Ashfaq Mehmood would visit New Delhi with an eight-member delegation on Monday.
Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh has claimed in an interview that Pakistan would not bring the Baglihar Dam issue in international court of justice and the matter would be resolved through bilateral talks, GEO reported without mentioning when Singh made these remarks.
Khan hoped that India would not loose the final opportunity and extend maximum cooperation for the just resolution of the dispute. Despite four years of negotiation, India's construction of the Baglihar hydropower project on the River Chenab in the India-held Kashmir remains controversial. India started the work on the dam in 1999 and it is likely to be operational by April.
Pakistan said the construction breaches a 1960 Indian Basin Water Treaty on the distribution of six rivers the two countries share. The treaty, which was brokered by the World Bank, provides recourse to the international arbitration if the two sides fail to resolve any dispute.
India, however, maintains the Baglihar Dam construction does not violate the treaty as it has not dug any canals to take water from the dam for irrigation purposes.