ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday inaugurated the two-day Islamabad Security Dialogue, a first-of-its-kind security dialogue with an aim to define the country’s new strategic direction in line with his vision of peace, regional connectivity, and development partnerships with the world.
Quoting National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf, who conceived the portal, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said that the aim of the initiative is to “bridge the gap between intellectuals and policymakers”.
“The aim of the portal is to bridge the gap between intellectuals and policy makers”, said SAPM on National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning @YusufMoeed who has conceived the portal. #IslamabadDialogue
— Prime Minister’s Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) March 17, 2021
The conference will seek to build a “comprehensive security framework that will enable the country to unfold its untapped potential in becoming a hub of global and regional development”, the PMO added.
“The aim of the portal is to bridge the gap between intellectuals and policy makers”, said SAPM on National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning @YusufMoeed who has conceived the portal. #IslamabadDialogue
— Prime Minister’s Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) March 17, 2021
The National Security Division (NSD) plans to make the conference an annual event to parallel the world’s leading security dialogues, it further said.
Addressing the gathering, Prime Minister Imran said that Pakistan needed to have a debate on the concept of national security, observing it encompassed more than just matters and affairs related to strengthening the security forces.
“We are slowly realising that national security relates to areas which no one thinks about,” he said and added the security conference is a strategic forum envisioned as the country’s leading intellectual platform for issues of national security.
He said that it was high time for Pakistan to get a stronghold of national security by expanding its domain inclusive of climate change, economic stability, and food security, besides focusing on military might.
The prime minister stressed the need for addressing the challenges of several non-traditional security threats confronting the people.
“A secure state is one where people own their country and realise they have stakes in it [the system],” he said, pointing that the “goals of national security could not be achieved in an environment with a handful of affluent and a sea of the poor populace”.
Imran said that good relations with states and regional neighbours were also paramount for national security. He noted economic prosperity could not be sustained without peace in the neighborhood and adding Pakistan was poised to become a trade and transit hub for the extended region.
He noted that Pakistan was situated at the confluence of two big markets — Iran and Central Asia — besides China who he observed is the world’s second-largest economy.
The prime minister called upon India to give the people of occupied Kashmir their right to self-determination in line with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSC).
Recounting August 5, 2019 when India revoked the special status of held Kashmir in a unilateral move, he said for an enabling environment for meaningful dialogue, “India must take the first step forward”.
On Afghanistan, he said that after the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan has the greatest stake in the peace process and vowed to continue extending assistance for a political settlement between Taliban and Kabul.
Imran said that food security was another issue, adding that the government will launch a comprehensive programme regarding this in the coming weeks.
In April, he said, the government will launch a comprehensive strategy to address the availability of food through accurate mapping of the exact demand of the commodities.
The prime minister also pointed to the issue of climate change and said that it was also an area concerning national security. He said that the issue was something that no one had paid attention to before when actually it was a very “frightening thing” which had the potential to overshadow everything else for upcoming generations.
“Pakistan is among those countries taking steps to tackle climate change,” he said, adding his government had been internationally recognised for the Billion Tree Tsunami initiative.
‘COHERENT NARRATIVE’:
In his address, Dr Yousuf called for initiating a national security dialogue in parallel with the world’s best security platforms.
“As a country as important as Pakistan, we should have a platform where ideas can be exchanged, and others may come and join the dialogue,” Yousuf said. “Our goal is to make it an annual event paralleling the world’s best security dialogues, where the world would come and talk to us on our soil, on our terms,” he added.
The SAPM said that Pakistan needs a coherent narrative to promote its reality to the world, adding: “We have been treated unfairly over the years, especially by the foreign media that paints Pakistan in a negative light; that’s an area that’s our responsibility to address.”
Yousuf maintained that perhaps the most important and relevant aspect for today’s occasion is this idea of the culture of more inclusive policymaking. “We have immense talent in universities, faculties, youth, the think-tanks. A lot of money is spent, and a lot of good ideas are generated. Unfortunately, the public sector was not geared up to take these up and use them optimally,” he noted.
He said that the national security division created a pool of experts a year ago, where Pakistan’s best minds in the aspects related to comprehensive security, be it traditional security, diplomacy, climatic security, and food security were brought together to advise the government. “The recommendations that we are giving today are part of their partnership,” he maintained.
THE CONFERENCE:
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa will deliver a keynote on Thursday.
“The aim of the portal is to bridge the gap between intellectuals and policy makers”, said SAPM on National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning @YusufMoeed who has conceived the portal. #IslamabadDialogue
— Prime Minister’s Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) March 17, 2021
The summit, in which top scholars and diplomats would also participate, will be live-streamed to reach a wider audience. It can also be watched on its Twitter account.
The event is being organised by the NSD in collaboration with its advisory board, comprising five leading think tanks including the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies, Islamabad Policy Research Institute, Institute of Strategic Studies, Institute of Regional Studies and Institute of Strategic Studies, Research and Analysis of the National Defence University (NDU).
The venture aims to bring together global and local intelligentsia to debate the country’s critical national security issues and generate ideas to work towards combined solutions to complex challenges.
One of the key objectives of the forum is to include and engage the country’s influential research institutes in the policymaking on domestic and international issues.
The idea of transforming the think tanks into policy hubs is to help make informed policy decisions. The dialogue also aims to help bridge the divide between university researchers and policymakers, organisers told a foreign media outlet.
Some of the invited experts include former US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, National Security Advisor (NSA) Dr Yusuf, Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, and director of International Crisis Group’s Asia programme, Laurel Miller.
The dialogue will bring current and former officials and local and global security and policy experts to discuss comprehensive dimensions of security, not only national security but also the economic, environmental, and human security.
And now in this Security Dialogue, Pakistan Army officials will discuss how to spread terrorism in neighboring countries and how to incite the extremists there to spread violence and instability. Efforts to increase terrorism in Afghanistan and Kashmir will be discussed and at the same time it will also be considered how to get beg from countries all over the world despite allegations of spreading terrorism. Apart from all this, it will also be discussed how to increase the export of Pakistan’s most exported product ‘Terrorism’.
Funny how the only comment on here is from someone who has a hatred for Pakistan and by the looks of it has only skipped through the article.