The Chinese and Pakistani authorities in Urumqi, the capital of the trouble-stricken Muslim majority province of China, have strongly refuted reports about the presence of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) troops in the Kashmir and the northern areas of Pakistan.
Even though the Chinese military presence in the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA) of Pakistan has been a matter of concern in New Delhi, it was the first time that a serving Army Chief went public with the Indian establishment’s assessment about the kind of Chinese presence in the northern areas of Pakistan. Army Chief General VK Singh, on October 5, had said that there were over 4,000 PLA troops in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.
However, senior foreign office officials of China said that the Indian Army Chief’s claim was untrue and must be based on some misunderstanding. According to Zhang Xiaodi, the director general of the foreign affairs office in Urumqi, there was no truth in the allegation. “There are only Chinese construction teams working in the northern areas of Pakistan on certain development projects being carried out by Pakistan and China jointly. But the presence of the Peoples Liberations Army’s troops there is out of question”, he added.
According to Masood Ahmed Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to Beijing, there was no basis for the reports in the Indian media about the presence of Chinese soldiers in Gilgit-Baltistan or along the Line of Control in Kashmir, as claimed by India’s Northern Command chief Lt Gen KT Parnaik.
He believed that such reports were being spread in the backdrop of the Pakistan’s decision to include, for the first time, Chinese troops in military exercises along the border near Punjab and Rajasthan. It was the 101 Engineering Regiment of the PLA that took part in military exercises in August 2011.
