ISLAMABAD: Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said on Tuesday that Pakistan and India had agreed on resumption of the composite dialogue to address all outstanding issues. Answering a question in the Senate, Khan said that Pakistan wanted to resolve all outstanding issues with India, including Jammu and Kashmir, but the Pathankot incident stalled the composite dialogue between the two countries. Replying to another question, he said that Pakistan had raised objections to the design of India’s Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant and efforts were being made to address this issue at the Indus Basin Commission level. On behalf of the agriculture minister, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada told the House that there was a plan to launch special projects for the neglected agro-ecologies. Khan said the US secretary of state had been misquoted. He read out two questions asked by a CNN representative and the secretary of state’s answers to those questions to support his contention that he was misquoted. He said the US secretary of state did not mention the name of Pakistan in his comments. Khan said that 460 Pakistanis were languishing in Indian jails and counsellor access to them had been sought from India. Replying to another call attention notice, the minister said that Hindu extremists ransacked a PIA office in New Delhi. He said that all employees of the national flag carrier remained safe and the issued had been taken up with the Indian government.
