NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: On the occasion of Pakistan Day, Islamabad expressed its desire for good neighbourly relations and said that it wanted to settle all disputes, including Kashmir, through dialogues.
“I would like to emphasise that peace and stability in this region are essential for the development of all the countries. Pakistan would like to have good neighbourly relations with all its neighbours especially India for durable peace and stability,” acting Pakistan High Commissioner in India Aftab Hasan Khan said while speaking during an event organised the mark Pakistan Day.
“It is essential that we solve all bilateral issues with negotiations through dialogues especially the issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” Khan told ANI news agency.
It is important that New Delhi and Islamabad work towards eliminating poverty and illiteracy, he said. “It would only be possible if there is peace. For peace to prevail, issues must be resolved through dialogue.”
Khan’s remarks come days before Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will attend Heart of Asia — a meeting that among others would be attended by India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar — in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
The meeting provides a platform for regional cooperation with Kabul at its centre and with the recognition by the participants that a secure and stable Afghanistan is vital to the prosperity of the region.
The statement coincides with India and Pakistan holding in three years the first meeting of a commission that deals with water rights on the Indus River on Tuesday, illustrating a broader resumption of diplomatic ties.
The Permanent Indus Commission, set up under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, is scheduled to meet in New Delhi on March 23 to 24, said two Indian officials that deal in bilateral water issues.
At the talks, Pakistan is expected to raise its objections to the technical designs of India’s Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai hydroelectric plants.
The talks represent a thawing in bilateral ties, which have been frozen since a 2019 suicide bombing in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) blamed on Pakistan and India’s decision later that year to strip the disputed region’s autonomous status in order to bind it closer to India.
But over the past few weeks, the two governments have made tentative efforts to re-engage and calm the borders as they struggle to extricate their countries from the worst economic downturn ever amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
About a month after the armies of Pakistan and India agreed to observe a ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC), Bloomberg revealed the months-long talks that preceded the landmark announcement were brokered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The cease-fire, the report which cited sources said, is only the beginning of a larger roadmap to forge a lasting peace between the arch-rival neighbours.
The next step in the process involves both sides reinstating high commissioners in New Delhi and Islamabad, who were pulled in August 2019 after Pakistan protested India’s move to revoke the semi-autonomous status of occupied Kashmir.
The reinstatement of the envoys will be followed by the hard part: Talks on resuming trade and a lasting resolution on Kashmir.
Last Thursday, addressing a gathering of scholars and experts discussing national security at the Islamabad Security Dialogue, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in a rare conciliatory call, urged for a peaceful resolution in Kashmir and for peace talks with India.
He had also called for burying the past and moving forward, saying that Kashmir holds the key to peace in all of South Asia, a region that is home to a quarter of the world’s population.
“It is important to understand that without the resolution of the Kashmir dispute through peaceful means, the process of sub-continental rapprochement will always remain susceptible to a derailment,” the army chief had observed.
Who does not want peace, but peace is not possible with terrorism. After spreading terrorism in the entire region, if a country like Pakistan talks about peace then it seems amazing. Although the resolution of peace should not be turned down, but any other country must remain cautious in the case of a country like Pakistan. Pakistan has been deceived in the past despite talking about peace. The world saw this example in Kargil, when Pakistan occupied India’s territories in the midst of peace talks, and its result was in the form of war. Therefore, this time also India should be cautious and should not rule out the possibility of any misadventure from Pakistan.