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Pakistan-India water talks inconclusive

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LAHORE: The second day of Pak-India talks on controversial water projects remained inconclusive with Pakistan putting up six technical questions to India out of which only four were discussed.

The Indian side could not offer satisfactory response to the queries raised by Pakistan and the second day`s talks ended without being fruitful. Now the two parties will discuss the remaining two questions on Monday. The Ori-II project will also be discussed, The News has learnt.

Sources privy to the meeting said the daylong debate between Pakistan and India remained inconclusive as it seemed that the Indian side was not ready to take technical issues seriously. After the talks, the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) Commissioners gave a briefing to the media at Nespak. Indian Indus Commissioner Arojun Nath mostly kept mum and did not respond to media queries. He said the internal issues could be resolved with discussion while talks between the two countries would continue.

However, Pakistan Indus Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah briefed the media about Pakistan`s technical reservations as to the Kishan Ganga project. He said Pakistan had put up six questions out of which only four were discussed while the remaining two would be discussed on Monday (today) session. Jamaat Ali mentioned that the first question was `free board` issue, the second related to storage capacity, the third diversion of river and the fourth about de-silting.

He said Pakistan had also reservations on the Indian formula for water storage. "The Indian calculation for water storage is wrong and we have discussed about the formula," he said. Pakistan also said that according to the Indian design, Kishan Ganga Dam was not safe, he said.

Shah said the viewpoints of both sides were opposed to each other. He said Pakistan had proposed to India to establish a timeframe to resolve the issue of Kishan Ganga project, which it accepted. The timeframe would be decided in Monday`s meeting.

End.