The speakers at a roundtable conference held here on Wednesday said that in a nuclearised South Asia, dialogue between Pakistan and India was the only option to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
Defence and diplomatic analysts expressed these views while speaking at a roundtable conference entitled “Pakistan-India Peace Dialogue: Current Status and Prospects”.
The event was organised by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS).
Highlighting the lack of trust that has characterised hostility between India and Pakistan, diplomat Khalid Mahmood stressed an interruptible and meaningful dialogue process coupled with cooperative strategies to solve Kashmir, water and terrorism issues.
He strongly felt that Mushararf’s stance on Kashmir had hurt Pakistan’s principled stand on the issue and called on an end to human rights violations in Kashmir.
Describing terrorism as a common scourge, he called for a coordinated working relationship between the two countries to tackle the menace. He was of the opinion that emerging India could have more productive interaction in the region if it followed example of Indonesia and did not try to browbeat its neigbours.
IRS President Ashraf Azim observed that the dialogue process had been characterised by ups and downs and a lack of vision but he appreciated the new bilateralism in the peace process which he said might bring peace between the two nuclear rivals.
Professor Dr Ijaz Hussain of the Quaid-i-Azam University raised the question as to why Musharraf abandoned the UN resolution even before the beginning of the dialogue and said it harmed Pakistani position on the Kashmir issue.
Diplomat B A Malik made a proposal to bring the peace between India and Pakistan.
Gen (retd) Talat Masood emphasized that a policy of proxy war should be abandoned and Kashmir should be put on the backburner. The growing strategic partnership between the US and India demanded that Pakistan should follow a more pragmatism in its India policy. He felt that a Mumbai-like incident could disturb the peace process. He said Pakistan should become a credible partner in the fight against terrorism and it should prosecute those who had been involved in the Mumbai attack.
He said the nuclearisation of the region called for a responsible behaviour by both Pakistan and India and a doctrine like Cold Start should be abandoned.
Other speakers were of the view that India’s hegemonic behaviour could be countered through economic development and domestic stability. They advised that Islamabad should use its geo-strategic location positively by building gridlines and pipelines, which might benefit all. They said Pakistan could also take advantage from the economic growth of both China and India.