By Charlotte Greenfield
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan has decided to send its cricket team to India to participate in this year’s 50-over World Cup, the foreign office said on Sunday.
The neighbouring countries, who share fraught relations, have played each other only in multi-team events at neutral venues over the last decade.
“Pakistan has consistently maintained that sports should not be mixed with politics….Pakistan believes that the state of bilateral relations with India should not stand in the way of fulfilling its international sports-related obligations,” the foreign office statement said of its decision to take part in the World Cup in October and November.
India has ruled out travelling to Pakistan for the Asia Cup, which is scheduled to begin on Aug. 31.
Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was among the foreign ministers who travelled to India’s Goa last month for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, becoming the first senior Pakistani leader to visit India in nine years.
The neighbours have fought three wars and have had a number of military skirmishes in recent years. The two nuclear-armed neighbours both control parts of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir but claim it in full.
Pakistan’s foreign office said it had concerns about its cricket team’s security during the tournament and would convey them to the International Cricket Council and Indian government.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ed Osmond)
