No teams to India till dialogue resumption

LAHORE - The Lahore Chamber of Commerce an Industry (LCCI) has immediately suspended all trade delegations to India till the resumption of composite dialogue and urged the business community to stop traveling to neighbouring country. The decision was taken at an emergent meeting convened in the backdrop of Report of Indian Task Force on National Security and Terrorism. The meeting was presided over by LCCI President Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry and attended by top businessmen and industrialists of the country. LCCI Senior Vice President Ejaz A Mumtaz,Vice President Faisal Iqbal Sheikh and Executive Committee Members also spoke on the occasion. The participants of the meeting were of the firm opinion that the composition of the Task Force was enough to make the point that it was an organ of Indian Establishment. They said that it was very strange that the Indian Task Force on National Security and Terrorism had in its fold a former Indian Air Chief, a former General and a former Director of Intelligence Bureau of India and hardly has any true representative of the business community. They said that Pakistans business community believes that on the report the label of FICCI had just been used by the Indian Establishment for their ulterior motives. They said that the report was part of a well-calculated plan to tarnish the image of Pakistan, besides derailing the CBMs between the two countries. They said that it was very unfortunate that the Report had called for surgical strikes against Pakistan, use water as a tool to destroy Pakistans Agriculture and restrict travel between the two countries. They said that it seemed that the soft stance of Pakistan was being taken as its weakness and Indian was using all the tools to disrupt peace in the region. They said that the report is bound to create hostility and spell disaster of unimaginable magnitude between Pakistan and India. This is the height of irresponsibility and immatureness. The LCCI office-bearers said that in the backdrop of such a harsh stance against Pakistan, who would trust the Indian Ambassador in Pakistan who, only a few days back, had a meeting with the leading businessmen of Lahore and promised to use his good offices for improving the trade ties between the two countries. They said that at a time when the world economies were coming closer to each other by building business stakes, in the so-called FICCI Report, the idea of war between the two countries was set in motion.

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