Islamabad, June 23: Pakistan today criticised India for blocking its entry into the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in the midst of peace moves that will see Pakistan's new envoy taking up his post in New Delhi next week. "This is really very unfortunate because Asean foreign ministers by consensus had agreed to endorse Pakistan's entry into ARF," foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.

At the same time he announced that Pakistan's ambassador-designate to New Delhi Aziz Ahmed Khan will travel to India on June 30 to take up his new post. Khan will travel by road and cross at the Wagah border post 20 km east of Lahore next Monday, the spokesman said.

"This decision has been conveyed to the Indian external affairs minister," Khan told a weekly press briefing. He said India should not have blocked Pakistan's entry into ARF -- the Asia-Pacific region's top security grouping --when the two sides were engaged in efforts to normalise bilateral relations.

"It's really unfortunate and, I think, there is a need for India to re-visit this paranoia about Pakistan entering into international forums."

The association of Southeast Asian nations (Asean) earlier in the week agreed to lift the moratorium on Asean Regional Forum (ARF) membership to allow Pakistan to join the 23-member grouping. But India on Wednesday blocked it by raising a procedural issue, saying that the move was not on the agenda of the Phnom Penh conference.

Khan said Asean foreign ministers had "endorsed" Pakistan's candidacy and "we had overwhelming support of non-Asean ARF members but unfortunately and regrettably our candidature was blocked by India."

Bureau Report