A three-day international conference on Kashmir is being held in Japan. The conference "Peace Building and Reconstruction in South Asia: Exploring Development Support to Kashmir" is organised by Stockholm University's Center for Pacific Asia Studies (CPAS). The three-day conference will be attended from the Indian side by former foreign secretary Salman Haider, union secretary Wajahat Habibullah, Jammu and Kashmir CPI(M) secretary Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami and former army vice chief Lieutenant General Moti Dar (Retd), a KT report said on Saturday.
All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference and Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly member Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, former Pakistan minister Shafqat Mahmood, former foreign secretary Najmuddin A Shaikh and former defence secretary Lieutenant General Talat Masood (Retd) will represent the Pakistan side.
The conference will deliberate on identifying a common concept and framework for India and Pakistan to launch concrete and concerted action programmes for effective economic development, improving human security and welfare, and establishing good governance and accountability.
"The Saarc declaration of January 2004 at Islamabad had a positive effect on relations between India and Pakistan. Although the task of finding an ultimate solution to the Kashmir issue is formidable, the current momentum towards peace should be maintained, now that the leaders of the two countries share a determination to avoid an armed conflict, which could escalate to nuclear exchange," the organisers said in a press release.
"The peace momentum is now penetrating the societies of both India and Pakistan, mainly by increasing people-to-people contacts," they said, adding, "the challenge is to link the current peace momentum to peace-building and reconstruction of Kashmir, which would eventually facilitate an ultimate solution to the vexed issue."
The conference, to be held at JICA Yokohama International Center, Yokohama Minato-Mirai in Japan, has been divided into five sessions.
The first session will discuss 'Recent Developments on Peace Building and Reconstruction in Kashmir and Future Challenges for Sustainable Peace', while the second will have 'Current Status and Issues on Both Sides of the Line of Control (LoC) - Agenda for Sustainable Peace Process and Human Security.'
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