An official with China’s top planning agency said it does not accept Pakistan’s claim that it decided to cancel a US$14 billion infrastructure deal with China because Beijing was making demands that were impossible to meet, state media reported.
The Chinese government did not ask for ownership or operation rights to the Diamer-Bhasha dam or seek to take another Pakistan dam in exchange for striking an agreement with Islamabad, the state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday quoted an unnamed official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as saying. The conditions “did not exist”, the official was quoted. “The recent reports on Pakistani media contained factual mistakes”, “or they only reflected the stands of individual officials”.
Pakistani media had reported last month that the project was excluded from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework because Islamabad was unable to meet China’s “strict conditions” for agreement, according to the South China Morning Post.
You must log in to post a comment.