Pak may consider India's request for NIA visit: Aziz

Pakistan Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz today 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.

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 National Investigation Agency (NIA) team will be allowed to visit Pakistan in connection with Pathankot attack probe, Aziz told CNN-NEWS18 in an interview that “once the stage is reached...India makes a request and then we will see”.

Claiming that Basit’s comments that cooperation not meaning reciprocity were “over-interpreted”, he said he did not exclude option of 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 thing will work out. So, I don’t think one should over interpret statement, he (Basit) just said that cooperation is more important which is true,” Aziz said.