Phnom Penh: Strongly pitching for a “new pathway” to resolve all issues with India, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday said the two sides need to show flexibility and honour commitments made to each other having taken “baby steps” in improving their ties.
India and Pakistan require to build their relationship on “trust” and that sincere efforts must be initiated to ensure that they are able to achieve the “results that we have not been able to achieve so far,” Khar told PTI on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit here.
While asserting that solutions to all the issues must be found through dialogue, she said both sides have to bridge the trust deficit so that on the negotiating table “we don’t end up all the time restating the stated position.” “We have done it far too long. I feel that Pakistan sent a very serious message to its friends in India when it decided to move forward on trade,” she said, adding the intention behind the message was that it was based on mutual interest
More importantly … “we meant business when we said that we want to move forward in a different way that we were going to try and trade on a new pathway,” Khar said.
“I feel that there is a strong commitment from both the political leadership to do so. It has been my strong desire that we are able to solve some of the solvable disputes at least in the near future,” she said replying to a question. “For that in some area, we require flexibility and in other areas we just require to hold on or honour the commitments that we had made to each other. That will give a good message to our people,” Khar said.
“I think it is important to recognise that Pakistan has more than one way walked the talk of approaching this from a different lens and we are somewhat satisfied that we have been able to achieve at least baby steps together and ‘inshallah’ more to come in the future,” Khar said.
Observing that serious attempts had been made in the past to improve bilateral ties, Khar said both countries must make efforts so that the next generation does not have to carry the burden of the relationship. “I think this is the point to emphasise that many people have done the same. So it is important that now people can see what we have been able to achieve between the two countries in the last 60 years and therefore not be bogged by following the same policy in the next 60 years.
“I think we deserve it to our people. We deserve it to our next generation not to have them carry the burden of a relationship which is hostile, which is based on maligning each other, but a relationship which is based on national interests, on realities, on solving the disputes that we have among ourselves on the negotiating table,” she said.
Asked about her meeting with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo last week, she termed it as “good” and said both countries must not lose any opportunity to move forward.
Khar also noted that former Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani was keen to receive Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Pakistan. “… We should be aware of the lost opportunity as we move forward. I know that (it was) the former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s strong wish and desire to be able to receive a person who called him ‘a man of peace’ in his own homeland. Now we missed these opportunities and we hope that going forward that we will not miss such opportunities,” she said.
Khar said President Asif Ali Zardari has shown an immense commitment to working with India. “His recent visit to New Delhi was a testimony to that. The new Prime Minister (Raja Pervez) Ashraf remains committed to this. “I believe what we have been able to steer in Pakistan is a system-wide ownership of trying to make a difference of doing it differently,” she said, adding “I am also proud of the fact. I will give full credit to the Foreign Office and others within the Pakistan system.” (PTI)