The Senate was informed Thursday that eighteen prisoners including five officers and thirteen soldiers of 1965 and 1971 wars are missing in the record after the wars.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Ammad Khan informed the House during question hour that the matter has been raised with India a number of times but India has not acknowledged the presence of Pakistani prisoners of wars in their custody. He said until the response from Indian side is received, it could not be ascertained that these prisoners of war are dead or alive.
The Minister said that the issue of prisoners is humanitarian issue and remains high on priority of the government of Pakistan. He said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi has raised the issue of missing prisoners of wars at numerous occasions with Indian side and our High Commission is also vigorously following up. He said the High Commission has been in touch with human rights activists, lawyers and ICRC to locate prisoners of wars in India jails.
To a supplementary question, he said a total of four hundred and fifty-three prisoners including four hundred and twenty-four civilians and twenty-nine fishermen are in the Indian jails and negotiations are underway for the their repatriation.
Malik Ammad Khan said measures including Strategic Trade Policy Framework 2009-12 have increased geographical diversification of exports and we are focusing on regions in Africa, South East-Asia, Central Asia and with our friends China, Turkey and the countries in our neighborhood.
The Minister of State said the Afghan Trade Agreement has encouraged formal trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan and volume has risen to around 2.5 billion dollars annually.
He said Pakistan wishes to normalize its trade relations with India and steps have been taken to increase the number of tradable items with India by curtailing the negative list during this year.
He said the government is in the process of proposing and negotiating Free Trade Agreements and Preferential Trade Agreements with other countries. He said Pakistan has entered into Free Trade Agreement with China, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. He said steps have also been taken to increase trade with the OIC member countries.
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