New Delhi: The Foreign Secretary-level talks with India will be rescheduled, said Pakistan on Thursday. This comes after Pakistan did not confirm Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar's detention in connection with the Pathankot Air Force base attack.
Pakistan government sources said that the NSA-level talks will take place with India first followed by Foreign Secretary talks. The stand was taken by the Indian government as well.
The sources said that Pakistan has not yet shared Pathankot attack probe details with India. The National Security Advisor mechanism is in place and both will share details.
According to the sources, Pakistan also need details before moving further in investigations. A high-level probe team has been constituted but it wanted to visit India first to probe attacks.
The sources added that NSA Ajit Doval is in touch with his Pakistani counterpart Army Chief General (retired) Naseer Khan Janjua. Doval will brief security and diplomacy officials after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India also believes that Maulana's detention is a plant and there is no truth behind it, sources further said.
Not confirming Azhar's detention, Pakistan Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Khalilullah Qazi said, "I am not aware of such arrests. Mutual consultations are on about rescheduling the talks. We have said it often that terrorism is common enemy for all. We have to work together to end it."
The talks were scheduled to take place on January 15.
No arrest of Masood Azhar; no FS talks tomorrow, no government in J&K. Too many noes.— Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) January 14, 2016
On Wednesday, India had deferred a decision on whether to go ahead with the Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan and wanted to take it after NSA Ajit Doval's return from Paris.
Earlier, reports from Islamabad said that Azhar, his brother and "several individuals" belonging to his dreaded terror outfit JeM which is suspected to have engineered the Pathankot attack, were detained and their offices sealed after India demanded action, linking it to the fate of Foreign Secretary-level talks.
However, late in the night External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said India has received no confirmation of the detention of Azhar.
Mohammad Zubair, a minister in the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan, told an Indian TV channel that he cannot confirm the arrest of Azhar while Lt General (Retired) Abdul Qadir Baloch, minister for frontier regions, said that "Azhar was arrested". Azhar's brother Abdul Rehman Rauf has also been detained, Geo TV said.
Seven soldiers were martyred in the Pathankot terror attack. Six terrorists stormed the airbase on January 2 and the gunbattle continued for over 30 hours.
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