Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has reiterated that Pakistan is steadfast in promoting friendship and co-operation with all South Asian nations, "and with India our government remains committed to the composite dialogue process to resolve all outstanding issues, including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir".
He was speaking as chief guest at the concluding session of the three-day South Asian Electronic Media Workshop at a local hotel on Sunday.
The moot was held under the auspices of the South Asian Free Media Association (Safma).
Acting Governor Sindh Muzaffar Hussain Shah, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Muhammad Ali Durrani, Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem, Sindh Minister Sardar Ahmed, and Provincial Home Minister Rauf Siddiqui were also present on the occasion.
"We are a great believer in the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) and Safma", the Prime Minister declared.
He pointed out that Safma has been playing a key role in promoting awareness and understanding among the governments and peoples of South Asia.
He said that South Asia is a region of tremendous potential and is rich in human and material resources.
The Prime Minister said: "We recognise that the geo-political stability, mutual trust, durable settlement of all outstanding issues and co-operation will enable all countries in the region to divert their resources towards socio-economic development, unleashing their tremendous potential for growth and prosperity."
Appreciating the role of Safma, he said: "Your efforts are truly commendable, especially since a better appreciation of each other's views is critical for peace, co-operation and prosperity in our region. For these reasons I have placed the highest value to my exchanges with members of Safma."
Shaukat said that media in any society could play a major role in influencing opinions and expressing views.
He said that South Asia is a region of tremendous potential and constitutes one-fifth of humanity. "Over the millennia, it has been a beacon of wisdom and knowledge and has been the cradle of great civilisations. The Prime Minister said that South Asia is rich in human and material resources. "We are resilient and enterprising, intelligent and industrious people with a large reservoir of entrepreneurial and technological skills. We have demonstrated remarkable ingenuity for transformation, innovation and invention and have adapted to the emerging demands of environment and times. Home to increasing portion of the global work force, growing middle class and the largest market for consumption and trade, South Asia collectively can be part of Emerging Markets Club."
He recalled that in the Saarc Summit in Dhaka, the historic decision was taken to include Afghanistan in Saarc and invite China and other countries as observers. Central Asia is also an important region, which has to be brought in this fold and the regional group and that Saarc should be as inclusive as it can be.
South Asia's geographic location is at the critical crossroads between the East and the West, stretching from the Gulf to the Andaman Islands. Vital sea and air links pass through this region.
He said: "To our north and west are the energy-rich regions of Central and West Asia. To our East is China, the emerging super power of the 21st century, as well as the economically vibrant countries of Asean, South Korea and Japan. South Asia's proximity to these regions provides us with multiple opportunities for mutually beneficial co-operation."
He said: "While our region has been blessed with such undeniable potential, we are far from harnessing this potential fully to the benefit of our people.
"We have relatively spent far more time and resources addressing conflicts and disputes resolution rather than focusing on growth and development and, therefore, remain vulnerable to many challenges."
The Prime Minister said: "Going forward in the third millennium, the sobering array of challenges that confront South Asia are supply of assured and reasonably priced energy, adequate water resources and their distributional management, global warming and food security, vulnerability to natural catastrophes, pandemics, bridging the skill gap, higher productivity and job creation."
Shaukat said that the region's social challenges include providing more schools for children, access to clean drinking water, sanitation and better health services, mainstreaming womenfolk as equal partner in the development and improving quality of life.
He said that low-income levels continue to be a serious impediment in becoming a strong partner of the developed countries.
We need to break out of this vicious cycle. In our view, the remedy lies in reordering our national priorities and seeking growth through mutually beneficial intra-regional co-operation. This requires a qualitative change in our mindset, a paradigm shift in our national policies. We will have to think out of the box solutions to our problems.
"To achieve such a far-reaching transformation, it is essential that we address the root-causes of the problems that we face. South Asian countries are beset with disputes and differences with each other, which have remained unresolved for more than five decades.
"Only a just and durable settlement of these disputes on the basis of equity and compromise can help improving the trust deficit that has plagued our relations and stunted our co-operation for so long."
Shaukat Aziz stated that the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, "which we had all created with such high hopes and promises", could not reach its full potential yet.
"To be sure, we have made progress in Saarc towards promoting co-operation in certain areas, which we in Pakistan truly welcome. Nevertheless, we believe that substantive regional co-operation within Saarc, such as in Asean or the European Union would need necessary enabling environment. This requires Saarc member states to resolve their disputes and evolve the framework for meaningful co-operation."
He stressed that "each of us" must recognise that none could pursue individual interests at the cost of others in the region.
"In the final analysis, the interests of the region far outweigh the interests of any single country. Therefore, it is essential for us to promote complementarities and interdependencies between ourselves so as to ensure a win-win position for all. We must also share our best practices and help each other to help ourselves."
Only such an approach, the Prime Minister said, could make Saarc relevant to the people of South Asia, he added.
The Prime Minister said: "We in Pakistan, are steadfast in promoting friendship and co-operation with all South Asian nations. We have pursued these relations on the basis of sovereign equality, peaceful co-existence and mutually beneficial co-operation. With the exception of India, no differences or disputes exist between Pakistan and any other South Asian state."
He said that with India, "our government remains committed to the composite dialogue process to resolve all outstanding issues, including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir."
Shaukat said that the dialogue process has led to reduction of tensions and adoption of several confidence-building measures (CBMs), which have facilitated people-to-people contacts. "We welcome these developments, which are to the benefit of our people. We are also seeking co-operation in new areas such as construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan as well as a pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.
"While these are positive developments, we believe that the time has come to move from conflict management to conflict resolution. The Kashmir dispute lies at the heart of the relations between Pakistan and India. We believe that a just and durable settlement can only be based on the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiri people. We also recognise that such a solution must be acceptable to both Pakistan and India. To achieve this objective, all three parties must demonstrate commitment, flexibility, magnanimity and leadership to solve this issue."
The Prime Minister said: "On our side, the President of Pakistan has put forward ideas such as demilitarisation and self-governance to encourage dialogue and out of the box thinking. We expect the Indian side to respond in a positive way to carry the discussions forward. Dialogue and discussion can achieve tremendous progress towards resolving the complex problems. It is now essential that we must engage in a substantive and result-oriented dialogue to resolve the Kashmir dispute and move beyond restating our well-known positions."
He said that there was need for a paradigm shift in the thinking on the dispute resolution. He said: "We recognise that geo-political stability, mutual trust, durable settlement of all outstanding issues and co-operation will enable all countries in the region to divert their resources towards socio-economic development, unleashing their tremendous potential for growth and prosperity.
"Notwithstanding maintaining minimum credible defence in the existing environment, we have been engaged for the last seven years in painstaking effort to secure economic stability; strengthen our democratic institutions; empower the vulnerable segments of our society; engender development and decision-making process; stem the rising tide of extremism and ensure better standards of living for our people to make Pakistan a prosperous, moderate, democratic, Islamic State."