Pakistan
China to join Pakistan in blast probe that killed 9 Chinese workers
Beijing: China will join the probe into the blast that killed 13 people, including 9 Chinese workers, travelling in a bus in Northwest Pakistan.
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, told a regular briefing that China will assist Pakistan to investigate the blast, Reuters reported.
Earlier, China had asserted that the blast was a bomb attack but later changed its stance and called it a blast.
The blast caused the bus to fall into a deep ravine, Reuters had reported Wednesday, citing a senior government official who did not want to be named.
Thirty Chinese engineers were travelling in the bus to the site of the Dasu dam in Upper Kohistan, a senior administrative officer told Reuters..
The Dasu hydroelectric project has been undergoing for several years.
It is a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $65 billion investment plan under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative which aims to link western China to the Gwadar sea port in southern Pakistan.
Post the incident, Zhao had called the explosion a "bomb attack" but Pakistan said that mechanical glitch in the bus caused a gas leak that caused the blast, Reuters said.
Several anti-Pakistani government militants have in the past attacked Chinese projects, prompting speculations that the explosion was indeed a terrorist attack.
Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and requested Pakistan to probe the explosion but refrained from calling it an attack, according to a post on Thursday on the Chinese foreign ministry's website, Reuters reported.
But Wang told Qureshi that Pakistan should immediately get hold of the culprits and ensure severe punishment if it was found to be a terrorist attack.
Wang, who is China's State Councillor and foreign minister, said "lessons should be learned" and both the countries should tighten security measures to ensure safe and smooth operation of China-Pakistan cooperation projects, the report added.
Wang and Qureshi held talks in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on the sidelines of a foreign ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
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