Pakistan, China committed to enhance cooperation under CPEC: FO

Celina Ali

Islamabad: Pakistan said Monday that the areas of cooperation under Phase-II of China Pakistan Economic Corridor include rural revitalization, agricultural development, industrialization, green development and science and technology.

This was stated by Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch at her weekly media briefing in Islamabad.

The Spokesperson said CPEC has brought huge dividends to Pakistan as manifested in the creation of over 200,000 jobs, addition of 8000 MW power to national grid, building of 510 kilometers of highways and 932 kilometers of road network, and a 820-kilometer long optical fiber line.

She said Pakistan and China are committed to enhance cooperation under CPEC and develop it as a connectivity project for the region.

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said since 2019, India has taken a series of measures to alter the demographic makeup of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and intensified its suppression of the Kashmiri people.

She said India has carried out a selective delimitation of electoral constituencies, issued fake domiciles to millions of non-Kashmiris, and added hundreds of thousands of temporary residents to alter the existing voter rolls.

The Spokesperson said these measures are aimed at disenfranchising the people of Kashmir and converting them into a disempowered minority in their own land in gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

She said Pakistan believes that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have the right to determine their own future in a UN-supervised plebiscite as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Pakistan will continue to extend political, diplomatic and moral support to our Kashmiri brothers and sisters for the just and peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions.