By Omar Khalid,IANS,
Karachi : Pakistan will take a decision Friday on whether to
send its hockey team to India for a quadrangular tournament, the country’s
sports minister Aftab Jilani said here Tuesday.
Jilani told reporters that representatives of the sports ministry, foreign
ministry and the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) will Friday sit together
in Islamabad to take a decision over the issue.
Pakistan had confirmed its participation in the double-leg tournament to be
played in Chandigarh and Jalandhar in February.
However, after India’s decision to block its cricket team’s tour of Pakistan
over last month’s Mumbai terror attack, Pakistan, in retaliation, said it
would think again before sending its sports teams to India.
The PHF later sent a request for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to the
foreign ministry but so far the matter is unresolved.
Pakistan was supposed to join host India, world champions Germany and the
Netherlands in the tournament. India is already searching for a team to
replace Pakistan.
Jilani said the sports ministry has also forwarded a request for an NOC from
the Pakistan Squash federation, which wants to send its youth team for the
2008 Asian Junior Squash Championships to be played in Chennai Jan 16-23.