By Nilay Kar Onum
ISTANBUL (AA) – A veteran Pakistani diplomat has said he hopes the new government in India following elections will resume dialogue with Islamabad to resolve long-standing disputes between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
“We do hope that next leadership in India will resume dialogue with Pakistan,” Shamshad Ahmad, who served as the foreign secretary of Pakistan from 1997 to 2000, told Anadolu Agency on the sidelines of a conference in Istanbul.
India is currently holding multi-phased general elections which will run through May 19.
“We hope that when we resume our dialogue, we can address our problems because that’s the only solution for our region, for our two countries and perhaps for the world,” said Ahmad, who is also an international relations expert.
“India and Pakistan today are nuclear-armed. They ought to be more careful and avoid any conflict. That’s the need of the time,” he added.
A suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir which killed 40 Indian troops in February plummeted relations between the arch-rivals with India blaming Pakistan for the attack in the insurgency-hit region held by both countries in parts.
Referring to the Kashmir dispute, he said: “India-Pakistan relations are essentially bedeviled by the non-resolution of their main outstanding problem, which is Kashmir.”
Stating that the dispute today has “become a nuclear flashpoint,” Ahmad said: “People of Kashmir are waging a heroic struggle against India’s military occupation.”
“As long as Kashmir remains under India’s subjugation, there can be no durable peace in the region, ” he added.
Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.
Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars — in 1948, 1965 and 1971 — two of them over Kashmir.
Also, in Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.
Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.
- ‘Fraternal’ ties with Turkey
He also hailed brotherly relations with Turkey.
“We hope that we can further strengthen this cooperation and the intensity of this relationship because both Turkey and Pakistan can play a leading role regionally as well as globally.”
Stating that Pakistan and Turkey have a “unique location” geographically, Ahmad said: “Because of our geopolitical location, both countries are kind of transcontinental bridges. Turkey, on the European side, and Pakistan, on the Asian side, we link Europe and Eurasian bridges.”
Calling the relations with China “special” in terms of the geopolitical location, he said: “It’s a special relationship we enjoy with China. Because of our geopolitical location, China is our next-door neighbor. We have a common border in our northern areas and China’s western province.”
Speaking about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, he said: “It is not merely a project involving the building of roads and bridges, it is an idea, it is a concept, which involves all-round cooperation, not only between China and Pakistan but [also] linking the two countries beyond the other regions.”
The $64 billion mega-project signed in 2014 aims to connect China's strategically important northwestern Xinjiang province to Gwadar port through a network of roads, railways, and pipelines to transport cargo, oil, and gas.
The economic corridor will not only provide China cheaper access to Africa and the Middle East but will also earn Pakistan billions of dollars for providing transit facilities to the world’s second-largest economy.
- Sri Lanka attack
Terming the recent bombings in Sri Lanka, which have killed at least 253 people, “terrible,” Ahmad said: “They have no problems with anybody. So It’s very strange whoever perpetrated this atrocity, I think they have taken advantage of the weakness of this region and they thought that this is the best place to strike.”
“It is important not only for the countries of the region but for the world at large, especially the major powers that we should be getting together instead of blaming each other, ” he said.
“We know basically most of the forces, who are creating these problems, have been created by the major powers basically.
“Now this ISIS [another name for Daesh], who created this? You know that. What we have to do [is] to prevent these forces in the future, and we have to create an environment, where there are no such organizations. There should be zero tolerance, ” he said.
On April 21, Easter Sunday, a total of eight explosions targeted different locations in and outside Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks.
