India on Wednesday registered strong protests with Pakistan and China over a bus service that is a part of the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
In response to queries from the media, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “We have lodged strong protests with China and Pakistan on the proposed bus service that will operate through Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir under the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.”
Raveesh Kumar further said that the Indian government has never recognised the China-Pakistan “Boundary Agreement” of 1963 and that it is illegal and invalid. “Therefore, any such bus service through Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir will be a violation of India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added.
Notably, the luxury bus service under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project is set to be officially launched on Saturday. The bus service will run between Lahore and Kashghar, a city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s far west, through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The 30-hour journey will cost 13,000 Pakistani rupees.
Launched in 2015, the $50 billion (Rs 370.42 crore) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China’s resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.
However, India has protested the ‘CPEC’ project as it runs through PoK, which India maintains is part of Jammu and Kashmir, its northernmost state, and therefore Indian territory.
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