Pathankot probe: NIA team may be allowed to visit Pak, says Sartaj Aziz

New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister’s adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz on Monday indicated that his country may consider a request by India for a visit by its NIA team to further probe the Pathankot terror strike, days after top Pakistani envoy ruled out the same. Mr Aziz said Pakistan high commissioner to India Abdul Basit’s comments that the bilateral peace process was “suspended” did not mean “cancelled or given up” and hoped that the Indo-Pak dialogue will resume soon.

On whether India’s National Investigation Agency team will be allowed to visit Pakistan in connection with the Pathankot attack probe, Mr Aziz was quoted by news agencies as telling TV channel network CNN-NEWS18 in an interview that “once the stage is reached... India makes a request and then we will see”.

Claiming that Mr Basit’s comments that cooperation not meaning reciprocity were “over-interpreted”, he said he did not exclude option of the NIA’s visit to Pakistan.

“I don’t think he used that word. He said that right now cooperation is more important than that of reciprocity and does not exclude option and he said that let’s cooperate and then things will work out. So, I don’t think one should over-interpret statement, he (Mr Basit) just said that cooperation is more important which is true,” Mr Aziz said.

Earlier in April, Mr Basit had indicated that an Indian probe team is unlikely to be allowed to visit Pakistan, which had sent its JIT to probe the terror attack at the airbase, saying, “The whole investigation is not about question of reciprocity in my view. It is more about extending cooperation or our two countries cooperating with each other to get to the bottom of the incident”.