Pak Fulfilling All its International Obligations Relating to Kulbhishan Jadhav, Claims its Army

Pakistan is fulfilling all its international obligations relating to Indian death-row convict Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Army claimed on Thursday. Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.

Weeks later, India approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The ICJ, then, restrained Pakistan from executing him. In July last year, the Hague-based court ruled that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.

Responding to a question on Jadhav, Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Babar Iftikhar said, "The decision of the ICJ on Kulbhushan is being implemented."

"We are following international law — consular access was given to fulfil obligations under the ICJ verdict," he said in Rawalpindi.

Pakistan provided consular access to Jadhav in July, days after it claimed that he had refused to file an appeal in a court here against his conviction. However, India expressed its disappointment over Pakistan not providing an "unimpeded, unhindered and unconditional" consular access to Jadhav.

The Islamabad High Court on August 8 constituted a larger three-member bench to hear the petition filed by the government to appoint a legal representative for Jadhav. Pakistan claims that its security forces arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3, 2016 after he reportedly entered from Iran.

India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy. Iftikhar also accused India of committing human rights violations in Kashmir.

To a question about Pakistan's new political map, he said that "it is the expression of our intent" and added that "we have told the world that this is where we have to go".

In a provocative move, Pakistan on August 4 unveiled its new political map showing the entire Jammu & Kashmir and parts of Gujarat as its territories, drawing the ire of India, which dismissed it as ridiculous assertions that have neither legal validity nor international credibility.