By Iftikhar A. Khan
ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: The Foreign Office on Wednesday said Pakistan’s policy on Israel and India remained unchanged.

Commenting on Pakistan’s support for a UN resolution moved by Israel, FO spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said it was a technical resolution relating to agriculture technology for development and had no bearing on diplomatic or political relations with Israel.

He said at a weekly press briefing that 118 member states of the UN, including some Muslim countries, had voted for the resolution and 29 had abstained. He said no Arab country had asked Pakistan to vote against the resolution.

He said it was not for the first time that Pakistan and Israel had favoured a resolution, adding that it had been happening for decades. “Nobody should try to read something between the lines because nothing substantial has changed.” Mr Sadiq said Pakistan’s policy on Israel was in line with people’s sentiments.

About nuclear weapons, the spokesman said Pakistan had neither been warned by any country about the danger of its nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands, nor was there any threat from any country to neutralise or take away its nuclear assets.

He said the strongly-worded statement made by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee about nuclear assets on the occasion of the test-firing of Hatf-VII missile was in response to insinuations being made for three weeks by the western media about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. He reiterated that the nuclear assets were safe and there was no danger of their falling into wrong hands.

Mr Sadiq described as wrong the perception that Pakistan had accepted the occupation of Kashmir by India and said the issue was still being negotiated with India and Pakistan had not changed its stand.

Answering a question, he said there were indications that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would visit Pakistan in the near future but Foreign Minister Inamul Haq had said nothing on the subject in India and he had been misquoted.

About the arrest of some Balochistan Liberation Army activists in the United Kingdom, he said they had been arrested under the British law. He pointed out that at present there was no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK.

He said that 25 visas had been issued to foreign observers for the coming election.

About the visit of Chinese Senior Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Yi, he said the two countries had expressed their resolve to strengthen their partnership in defence, economic, commercial, cultural, educational, scientific and technical fields.