Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday said the Kashmir dispute cannot be put on the back -burner and both Pakistan and India have to show courage to resolve it. "We must address the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, and we must have the courage to face the reality," he told a group of British school students, who came to meet him at the Prime Minister House.
Responding to their queries about the process of normalisation of relations with India, Prime Minister Aziz said the two countries had three wars over the dispute and a resolution was necessary to bring lasting peace to the region.
The Prime Minister called for taking forward the confidence building measures (CBMs) in tandem with progress in the dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir.
"There are some who want to put the Kashmir issue on the back-burner. We think that we must have the courage to face up to the reality, and the reality is that it (Kashmir) is the root cause of the mistrust between the two countries," he added.
He said the CBMs had improved the atmospherics between the two countries but until the Kashmir dispute was settled real progress could not be made.
The Prime Minister said: "The human rights violations and the atrocities through which the Kashmiris go through every day are a cause of concern to everybody.
He said it was time that the two countries tried to address the "trust-deficit" and moved forward step-by-step towards a solution of the dispute.
Pakistan desires settlement of the dispute according to the United Nations Resolutions, but at the same time "we are also very open-minded and will see if there is an equally good solution on which all the three stakeholders -Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris -agree."
However, he pointed that this would require courage, leadership magnanimity, flexibility on the part of both the countries.
He said there had been a realisation in India, on the need to find a solution and Pakistan would also like to settle its disputes with the neighbour.
"We are very eager to settle disputes with India and would do whatever it takes to build lasting peace in the region because that is the best thing we can give to our future generations," Aziz said.
Prime Minister Aziz said that at times Pakistan's true image was not portrayed but said the country was progressing as an enlightened, modern Islamic state.
He also regretted the decline of inter-faith harmony in the post 9/11 world and urged the students to work to seek greater harmony with their peers.
He said despite the challenges, massive educational reforms were underway and the students had the option to seek education from madressas, public and private schools.
He said the number of private schools had risen from 19,000 to 63,000 the schooling and textbooks were now free to make it easier for the less fortunate segments of the society.
The Prime Minister cited poverty as one of the major reasons for the high dropout rates in primary schools in the public sector and said a lot more needs to be done in this area.
He said Pakistan too, like the rest of the world, had some extremist elements. He said only a very small percentage of less than one percent of the madressas were found involved in imparting extremist views.
The Prime Minister gave the students an overview of Pakistan's geo-strategic location, economy and its endeavours to achieve universal literacy in the country.
He said Pakistan was amongst the top ten Asian countries in the level of economic growth and was looking forward to a complete transformation in the next ten years.
Shaukat Aziz said the country had a rich human capital, but the people needed opportunities and resources were required to provide for their health, education and other basic needs. The Prime Muster said the government was trying to provide the people with clean drinking water, electricity and other development infrastructure.
The children later were presented a dairy of the Prime Minister House and a book on Pakistan.
The British High Commissioner to Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant accompanied the children.
Comments
Comments are closed.