NEW DELHI: In what he acknowledged is a "concession",
Pakistan's foreign minister said yesterday that Indian national
Kulbhushan Jadhav, who's on death row for alleged espionage, will get Indian consular access, reported Pakistani media.
Jadhav's family members+
at the meeting with him and that cannot be called "consular access".
Asif meanwhile said in his interview that the reason Jadhav is getting such access is that
Pakistan didn't want India to create an impression that Jadhav was being denied access to his family, especially since his case is being heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
"We didn't want any weakness in our case in the ICJ over the meeting...We have allowed access to Jadhav's family purely on a humanitarian basis. However, if we were in the same place, India wouldn't have been so kind to us," said Asif.
Earlier, a spokesman from Pakistan's foreign office said India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad, JP Singh, will accompany Jadhav's wife and mother at their meeting with the Indian national who was arrested last year by Pakistan for ''espionage". The spokesman added that the meeting will take place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its photo and video footage would be issued.
Jadhav, 47, was arrested last year in March from Balochistan. He was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April this year, following which India moved the ICJ in May. The ICJ halted his execution on India's appeal pending its final verdict.
