BEIJING: Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz Thursday said the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir must be resolved in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the wishes of the Kashmiri people for durable peace and stability in South Asia.
Addressing the Fifth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan remains fully committed to the objective of lasting peace, as part of the comprehensive dialogue on all issues. Sartaj said Pakistan greatly values the role of CICA as a forum for interaction and confidence building to advance the cause of peace and security and development in Asia. He said if Asia were to regain its lost power and glory and contribute to global peace and development commensurate with its true potential, “we would have to assume our responsibilities and act on several fronts”.
“We also have to draw attention to root causes of terrorism and violent extremism, and the urgent need to address them. This should be main message as a part of the theme of promoting peace and security through dialogue,” he remarked. “We must find peaceful political solutions to the conflicts in Syria and Yemen and Palestine. Pakistan supports the UN-led diplomatic initiatives in this regard,” he added. Referring to the Afghan issue, he said a peaceful and stable Afghanistan was in the best interest of Pakistan, and the entire region, adding it was also a pre-requisite for both Pakistan and Afghanistan to realise their full potential of their strategic locations as the hubs of economic, trade and energy corridors, and connectivity across regions.
He said peace in Afghanistan will also enable the return of millions of Afghan refugees hosted by Pakistan for over three decades.
Apart from the considerable progress in economy, human rights and environment in Asia, he pointed out that drug trafficking, terrorism and organised crimes have become serious challenges confronting the entire region. “A lot more need to be done to promote inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and understanding,” he said.
Even in this age of democracy, he said there were countries and sub-regions under foreign occupation, subjected to grave human rights violations and denied their fundamental and inalienable right to self-determination that has been promised to them by the United Nations. “Cooperative multilateralism offers the best mechanism to effectively address these complex challenges,” he added.
He said while Europe and US were still recovering very slowly from the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the Asian continent has surged ahead with a much faster rate of growth and contributed strongly to global trade and global growth.
He said the economic prospects of Asia for the next decade were even more promising due to several initiatives to expand trade and energy connectivity. He said the most important initiative in this context was the One Belt One Road vision of Chinese leadership.
Expressing his gratitude to Chinese Minister Wang Yi for the arrangement and hospitality, he appreciated China’s active and able stewardship of CICA and President Xi’s inspiring opening address. He termed CICA an important forum and said Pakistan would remain actively engaged with member states with a view to strengthening this process for collective benefit.
Pertinent to mention here that CICA was created in Almaty two decades ago for dialogue and cooperation in diverse areas including terrorism; drug trafficking, organised crime, human rights, environment, economic progress and trade.
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