ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Thursday clarified that Pakistan had not entered into any bilateral procurement agreement with India on the purchase of any Covid-19 vaccine and the supply of doses was being carried out through GAVI, the international vaccine alliance.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing here, FO spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said, “The procurement and supply mechanism of vaccine doses is undertaken by GAVi and not the respective countries.”
Responding to a question on reports that Pakistan would receive 45 million ‘Made in India’ doses of Covid-19 vaccine, Zahid said that GAVI had offered doses to several countries including Pakistan under COVAX, the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access as an initiative launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure vaccine access to the world’s most vulnerable.
To a question regarding an update on missing Pakistani retired army office Habib Zahir in Nepal, he said that on request of the government, Nepal had constituted a special team to look into the incident, but there was no progress in the matter so far.
The FO spokesperson mentioned that there was strong evidence pointing towards the involvement of Indian hostile agencies in the abduction of Habib Zahir, including involvement of Indian nationals who reportedly received him at Lumbini, made his hotel reservations and booked his tickets.
“The abduction of Habib Zahir is a serious transnational crime which is in sharp contravention to international law, especially human rights and humanitarian law,” he said.
Zahid said that the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances had also registered the case of Habib Zahir, at the request of his family.
He urged upon the relevant authorities in India to respect the United Nations and constructively engage with the UN Working Group and take necessary steps to enable the immediate release of Habib Zahir.
The FO spokesperson said the resolution adopted by the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Assembly demanding interim provincial status was “an expression of needs and demands of the local people”.
He strongly rejected the impression that the situation of GB was in any way comparable to that of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK), where extrajudicial killings and illegal disappearances were a norm known to international community.
Zahid said that India’s international scrutiny continued to grow as world watchdogs and foreign media spotlighted its non-compliance with human rights laws.
On the Afghanistan situation, the spokesperson said that Pakistan had consistently supported the Afghan peace process including facilitation to the United States Taliban Peace agreement and subsequent intra-Afghan negotiations.
“Pakistan has continued to emphasize that there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and the only way forward is through a political process,” he said.
He said that it was important for Afghan parties to continue negotiations and pursue an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.
“All sides must work together for an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement,” he added.
The FO spokesperson welcomed the United States efforts to re-energize the peace process and expedite the final political settlement.
He said that Pakistan favoured a “systemic and well-resourced” rehabilitation of Afghan refugees and mentioned that Pakistan had taken steps to facilitate the travel of Afghan nationals to Pakistan.
