Pakistan prepares to take issue of alleged Indian spy to UN
08:54PM Sun 1 Jan, 2017
India and Pakistan will begin the new year facing off again over alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav who is currently in Pakistan's custody. As Islamabad prepares to present a dossier before UN on the alleged terrorist activities of Jadhav, India has issued yet another note verbale to Pakistan foreign ministry seeking immediate consular access to him.
This is the ninth note verbale, an unsigned diplomatic communication, issued by India for access to Jadhav and the first since reports from Islamabad quoted Pakistan's de facto foreign minister Sartaj Aziz as saying that there was no conclusive evidence against Jadhav.
Pakistan though later denied that Aziz had made that statement and said that there was "irrefutable" evidence against Jadhav. The two countries saw the customary exchange of lists of prisoners on January 1. India in its statement mentioned that it was still awaiting consular access to Jadhav.
Islamabad has not yet directly responded to New Delhi's fresh diplomatic communication but on Sunday it launched a counter-attack on India saying that Pakistan was a direct victim of Indian "state-sponsored terrorism".
In a statement in which it described the 1267 Sanctions Committee proposal to proscribe JeM chief Masood Azhar, who is an accused in the Pathankot airbase attack case, as politically motivated, it also said that Jadhav's activities were aimed at destabilising Pakistan and killing Pakistani nationals.
"With such duplicitous behaviour and blood on its hands, India has little credibility on counter-terrorism," said the Pakistan foreign office spokesperson, adding that in the coming days Pakistan will share with the UN "additional evidence" of Indian involvement in terrorism in Pakistan.
While India did not officially respond to the remarks, sources here said India will continue to actively seek access to Jadhav. While Pakistan claims that Jadhav is a commander-rank officer with Indian Navy, India maintains that he retired from the Navy in 2002 and had nothing to do with the Indian government when he was arrested allegedly from Balochistan.
The Vienna Convention on Consular relations says that "consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending state (India) who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation". India has repeatedly reminded Pakistan that Vienna Convention prohibits it from acting on his behalf only if he himself says so but Jadhav has never said that he doesn't want to meet Indian officials.
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