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The
two countries must not forget history but they should be able to learn
lessons from past hostilities and look towards a future of greater
cooperation in areas like trade, Khar said while addressing a conference
of Indian and Pakistani businessmen in Lahore on Monday.
Bilateral trade
will create increased space to look for solutions to the core issue of
Jammu and Kashmir and all other important issues, she said.
Greater trade would help India and Pakistan
to reach a position where they can talk to each other comfortably and
have confidence in each other that would make problem-solving an
inevitability, Khar said.
"We welcome India
to meet us half-way," Khar said in a speech that dwelt on the reasons
why the approach adopted by the two countries over the past six decades
had not worked.
The current Pakistan
government, she said, had shown "vision and foresight to venture into
what was believed to be a no-go area for 45 years" by boosting trade
with India.
"We look forward to seeing the same flexibility, the same venturing into the no-go area from India," Khar remarked.
"In Pakistan
today, there is across-the-board consensus that war is not an option
between two nuclear powers. The only option on the table is to resolve
our differences and disputes on the negotiating table," Khar said.
"Wars,
propaganda and international lobbying have not gotten us to what we
believe to be the promised land. They will not get us to the promised
land. Our vision of the promised land has to change," Khar said.
"We cannot expect
good things for Pakistan and ill for India. Indians cannot expect good
things for India and ill for Pakistan...It
is illogical and it is without historic precedent and it is at the root
of our common history of a lack of peace and tranquillity and sustained
pervasiveness of poverty and deprivation in both countries," she added.
Khar
referred to the avalanche that hit a high-altitude Pakistan Army camp
in the Siachen sector and buried 139 people under snow last month and
said the two countries had 23 years of lost opportunities to resolve the
standoff on the Himalayan glacier.
The recent tragedy in the Siachen sector was a "stark and painful reminder of the explicit human cost of status quo", she said.
In this regard, she
referred to a joint statement issued after a meeting of the premiers of
India and Pakistan in 1989 that had talked about a comprehensive
settlement of the Siachen issue based on the redeployment of troops.
The two sides, she said, have to seize opportunities and pro-actively pursue them to settle issues like Saichen.
"We believe that increased trade between India and Pakistan can help solve the puzzle," Khar said.
"Trade alone may not unlock the solution to the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir
(or) unlock the solution to Sir Creek or Siachen. Indeed we need to
make progress on these issues to keep the momentum we have today going
but trade never really stands alone," Khar added.
At
the same time, increased trade will require greater movement of goods
and people across the border, adjustment of visa regimes, investments in
physical connectivity and cooperation on issues related to the security
of trade, she said.
Calling
for the creation of a peace dividend, Khar said: "We have fought wars
and we have created an eco-system of hostility toward each other. This
deeply unsatisfactory situation is what we may call the war dividend. We
must reject this not for sentimental or ideological reasons but for
pragmatic ones. This isn't working."
Though Pakistan is committed to increased trade and normalised relations, it cannot achieve the goals on its own, Khar said.
"We welcome India
to demonstrate the same courage that our leadership has demonstrated, we
welcome India
to change some not perceived but real discriminatory investment
regulations that target Pakistani investors and traders and we welcome
India to seize opportunities that we create together, separately, by
design and sometimes by tragic accident," she added.
Talking to the
media after her address, Khar said Pakistan had suffered heavy human
losses in Siachen and it wants India to take a bold initiative to
resolve the issue along with other outstanding issues between the two
countries.
Pakistan wants the amicable solution to all disputes with India, including the Kashmir issue, through dialogue, she said.
Responding to a
question about US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks that
al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was in Pakistan, Khar said: "al-Qaeda
is our enemy and if the US has any information about the presence of
al-Zawahiri in Pakistan, it should share it with us."
Pakistan has suffered a lot in the war on terror and the US is aware of the country's problems, she said.
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