The snowballing crisis over Pakistan delivering the death penalty to arrested former navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav, has hit the bilateral talks between the coast guards of India and Pakistan. A coastal security source confirmed that the talks that were scheduled for 17 April has been cancelled, even though the Ministry of External Affairs has not issued a statement on the matter.
“The high level meeting scheduled for 17 April between Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) has been cancelled,” said an official source of the ICG to The Hindu on Saturday explaining that the decision to cancel the meeting was taken on Friday by officials. The talks were expected to deal with the issue of fishermen, captured boats and issues like smuggling.
This is the first indication of cancellation of official-level interactions between India and Pakistan since the death sentence was issued to Mr. Jadhav earlier this week. It is likely that more steps could follow based on Pakistan’s response to India’s latest request for consular access for Mr Jadhav.
No response on consular access so far
Pakistan has not reverted responding to the latest request for consular access that was conveyed to them on Friday by India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan.
“As far as we are concerned, we have asked for 14th time yesterday for consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav and there has been no reply yet,” said a diplomatic source.
The diplomatic answer came in the backdrop of media reports that Pakistan had already declined Friday’s request for consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav.
