FO asks India to keep politics out of sports

ISLAMABAD:

The Foreign Office on Thursday urged India not to politicise sports after New Delhi refused to grant permission to its cricket team to play in Pakistan early next year for the ICC Champions Trophy.

As the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) struck to its ground on the advice of the government in Islamabad with regard to hosting the event in entirety with or without the participation of the neighboring country, at a weekly news briefing the Foreign Office spokesperson said: "Pakistan has always said that sports should not be politicized."

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, however, would not offer further comments, saying the issues relating to holding of the Champions Trophy were being dealt with by the Pakistan Cricket Board and they had the lead on this.

Pakistan is scheduled to host the eight-team Champions Trophy in February-March next year. However, when PCB along with the ICC were supposed to announce the schedule of the tournament just 100 days before the event, BCCI informed ICC that the Indian government refused permission to the team to travel to Pakistan.

The PCB after consulting the government wrote a letter to the ICC, seeking explanation in writing about the reasons behind Indian refusal. The ICC has yet to respond to PCB's letter.

Relations between Pakistan and India have remained standstill for the past many years. India refused to send its team to Pakistan last year for the Asian Cup and PCB had to agree on a hybrid model where Indian matches were played in Sri Lanka. The BCCI is believed to have been pushing for the hybrid model again but Pakistan has made it clear that it is not acceptable.

There were hopes that India might send its cricket team to Pakistan after the Indian Foreign Minister travelled to Islamabad last month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson warned the Afghan Taliban government not to test Pakistan's patience as far as terrorist sanctuaries were concerned.

"As expressed by Pakistan on several occasions and by the countries of the Moscow Format and the neighboring countries of Afghanistan, it is incumbent on the Afghan authorities to take action against these terror groups. Support for these terror groups by any entity, individual, whether official or private, is unacceptable for Pakistan," Mumtaz told reporters.

"The patience of Pakistani people shall not be tested. We would urge Afghan authorities to take Pakistan's repeated requests seriously and take effective and immediate action against these terror groups," she added.

The spokesperson said Pakistan would not comment on bilateral engagement between Afghanistan and India when asked for her reaction over the recent visit of Indian delegation to Kabul.

Senior diplomat JP Singh recently visited Kabul and met the Taliban leadership including the first ever meeting between Mullah Yaqub, the Taliban defense minister and son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, and any Indian official delegation.

In another related development, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Afghanistan Ambassador Zamir Kabulov paid a day-long visit to Pakistan on Thursday.

According to the Foreign Office statement, he called on the Foreign Secretary Ms Amna Baloch and later had detailed discussions with the Additional Secretary (Afghanistan and West Asia), Ambassador Ahmad Naseem Warraich.

The two sides exchanged views on relations with Afghanistan and called for enhanced coordination among regional countries for a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. The two sides agreed to remain engaged towards this end.

In response to reports of China's proposal for bringing their own security for their nationals in Pakistan, Mumtaz said Pakistan and China had "robust dialogue" on all issues, including security for the Chinese nationals.

"Pakistan and China have a robust dialogue and cooperation on a range of issues, including on counterterrorism and security matters. This dialogue is based on mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation. We will continue to engage with our Chinese friends and partners with respect to security and counter terrorism matters. With respect to any specific proposal in the domain of security and intelligence, I would not comment, given their sensitive nature," she explained.