Daily Times

Pakistan and China agreed on Saturday to undertake the inquiry into the Dasu bus crash as quickly as feasible. It took the lives of 12 individuals, nine of them were Chinese nationals.

The agreement was reached after a phone call between China’s Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi and Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed that lasted more than 30 minutes. They talked about the unfortunate occurrence in Upper Kohistan.

This is the second high-level communication in two days, following Prime Minister Imran Khan’s phone conversation to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who assured him that all measures would be taken to examine the event.

Zhao expressed his condolences for the loss of valuable Pakistani lives, and said he had phoned Rasheed at the request of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The two officials discussed the investigation’s progress thus far and decided to finish it as quickly as feasible.

“No hostile force can destabilise fraternal relations between the two countries.”

Rasheed informed his Chinese counterpart that the investigations are carried out at the highest level on the direction of PM Khan and will be completed soon.

He said that Pakistan is providing all assistance to the Chinese team currently in Pakistan to investigate the matter.

Terming Pakistan and China “iron brothers”, the interior minister assured his Chinese counterpart that all the Chinese workers in Pakistan will be provided foolproof security.

Chinese delegation to pay a visit to Dasu

An investigating team of Chinese security officials will visit Dasu today as part of a joint probe into the incident to ascertain the facts.

They will be briefed by the Pakistani security officials.

‘Terrorism cannot be ruled out’

On Thursday, Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry said that “terrorism cannot be ruled out” in the Dasu accident.

“Initial investigations into the Dasu incident have now confirmed traces of explosives,” the minister had said.

He had said that PM Imran Khan is “personally supervising all developments in this regard” and that the government is closely coordinating with the Chinese embassy.

“We are committed to fight the menace of terrorism together,” he had said.

On Wednesday, a bus carrying Chinese workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa plunged into a ravine “after a mechanical failure resulting in leakage of gas that caused a blast”, a statement from the Foreign Office had said.

According to the statement, Chinese workers and accompanying Pakistani staff “were proceeding to their work place for an ongoing project”.