Beijing:
China mentioned on Thursday it will send a group to Pakistan to support investigate a blast on a bus that killed 13 men and women, like nine Chinese workers, following it backed away from an earlier assertion that the explosion was a bomb attack.
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, told a standard briefing that China would cooperate closely with Pakistan in the investigation.
Wednesday’s blast sent the bus crashing into a ravine in Khyber-Paktunkhwa province in Northwest Pakistan, exactly where Chinese engineers have for various years been working on hydroelectric projects as component of Beijing’s enormous Belt and Road Initiative.
China is a close ally and main investor in neighbouring Pakistan, and different anti-Pakistani government militants have in the previous attacked Chinese projects.
On Wednesday, Zhao had named the blast a “bomb attack” but Pakistan mentioned a mechanical failure brought on a gas leak that led to the explosion.
Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and urged Pakistan to investigate the blast but he stopped quick of calling it an attack, according to a post on Thursday on the Chinese foreign ministry’s site.
But Wang told Qureshi that if it was certainly a “terrorist attack”, Pakistan need to promptly arrest the culprits and punish them severely.
Wang, who is China’s State Councillor and foreign minister, mentioned “lessons should be learned” and each sides need to strengthen safety measures for China-Pakistan cooperation projects to make sure their protected and smooth operation.
The Chinese workers killed on the bus have been employed at the Dasu hydroelectric project, component of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $65 billion investment program aiming to hyperlink Western China to the Southern Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Wang and Qureshi spoke in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on the sidelines of a foreign ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)