“Both countries are in contact to firm up date for the meeting of the two foreign secretaries”, the Foreign Office spokesman, Qazi Khalilllah said.
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“We look forward to the visit of Pakistan SIT and our investigative agencies will extend all necessary cooperation”, said Vikas Swarup, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
Though the two NSAs have been in touch on the phone, no meeting between them has taken place.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs was not immediately available for comment but said earlier it would decide late on Wednesday whether Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar would travel to Islamabad on Friday.
The Indian Foreign Office spokesperson expressed hope that Pakistani government would complete the needed investigation and bring all the perpetrators of Pathankot attack to justice. There is anticipation that Ajit Doval and his Pakistani counterpart Naseer Khan Janjua may meet soon to discuss Pathankot. “Action taken against JeM is an important & positive first step”.
A Pakistan foreign office yesterday said that it was not aware about detention of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, the suspected mastermind.
“Why were these unconfirmed reports even put out, unless it was to fool [the Indian government] into announcing talks?” a senior official told The Hindu. Rauf and Ahmed were two others named by India as handlers of the attacks which jolted Pathankot air force base on January 2. “We welcome the statement issued by the Government of Pakistan yesterday on the investigation into the Pathankot terror attack”.
“Therefore, we should wait for the response from the government”, he added.
The arrest was confirmed officially on 14 January, with Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, minister of frontier regions, saying “Azhar was taken into custody to investigate the Pathankot attack”, Baloch was quoted as saying by Geo TV. The PMO also said that the JeM chief would be shifted to a detention centre in Lahore amid fears that his supporters could launch an attack to free him.
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“We hope Pakistan will take more measures against terrorist outfits now”, he said.
