Pakistan on Thursday conceded that a blast on a bus carrying Chinese workers, which killed nine of them, could have been caused by explosives, after having initially termed the incident an accident.
Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry tweeted that initial investigations of Wednesday's incident have "confirmed traces of explosives" and that terrorism has not been ruled out.
A total of 13 people, including four Pakistanis, were killed in the incident that involved a bus carrying workers of the Dasu hydropower project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry had initially claimed that the blast was caused by "mechanical failure resulting in leakage of gas."
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that a preliminary investigation had showed that it was an accident and nothing to suggest a terrorist attack was found.
However, China's Foreign Ministry condemned the incident as a "bomb attack."
"China has asked the Pakistani side to thoroughly get to the bottom of the truth as soon as possible, arrest the perpetrators, severely punish them and earnestly protect the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Pakistan," spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.
The change in the Pakistani position came after China postponed an upcoming meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $62 billion bilateral infrastructure and industrial development undertaking.
The committee was to hold its annual meeting on Friday. No new date has been given for it.
Chaudhry said Prime Minister Imran Khan is personally supervising the case and the investigations are being closely coordinated with China.
"We are committed to fight menace of terrorism together," he said.
