Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 17: The fourth Indo-Pak Dialogue concluded in New Delhi with an adoption of a joint resolution calling both the countries to make concerted efforts towards improving bilateral relations.
The dialogue brought together senior journalists, policy experts, academicians, advocates, former military officials and diplomats from India and Pakistan for two days of intense deliberations to discuss a wide range of outstanding issues between both countries.
Entering its fourth year, the dialogue is part of an India-Pakistan Track –II diplomacy initiative by the Centre for dialogue and reconstruction of the Jinnah Institute, which seeks to promote peace between the two countries through constructive engagement and conversation.
Recognizing that the upcoming election in India could be a transformative one, the resolution was passed with an hope that the new Government will build upon positive initiatives taken under the previous Governments and expeditiously pursue the revival of the dialogue process with Pakistan.
The resolution said Islamabad and New Delhi must move forward on a menu of outstanding items in order to move the region out from the shadows of instability, human insecurity and lost opportunities in trade, energy and information connectivity.
The resolution urges upon both the countries to fully implement all agreed CBMs, cooperate on outstanding issues and address each others concerns on key issues like Kashmir as well as terrorism with the aim of resuming the stalled bilateral dialogue.
The resolution said that the bilateral dialogue should be irreversible and uninterruptible.
The resolution appreciated the implementation of one year multiple entry visa for businessmen and recommended that people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan be encouraged, besides welcoming the cessation of ceasefire violations along the LOC and calling upon both the Governments to urgently take up discussions on Jammu and Kashmir so that a solution that is acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control is reached.
The resolution recommended the policy of issuing travel permits for cross LOC travel, recommended Non-Discriminatory Market Acess to be granted by Pakistan to India at an earliest, called upon the Governments to improve custom clearance processes, besides recommending the opening of Wagah-Attari Border for 24-hour operations and urging both the countries to clear each others apprehensions on post-2014 Afghanistan.
The delegates who took part in the Dialogue included Arshad Aziz Zuberi, Chief Executive and Editor Border Business Recorder; Zahid Hussain, Author and Senior Journalist; Shafqat Mahmood, Parliamentarian; Aziz Ahmad Khan, Former Ambassador; Mariana Baabar, Senior Journalist; Sherry Rehman, Former Federal Minister and president Jinnah Institute; Ammara Durrani, Executive Director, Search for Common Ground; Gen Athar Abbas, Former Director General ISPR; Syed Babar Ali, Former Finance Minister of Pakistan; Amir Mateen, Journalist and Syed Hassan Akbar, Director Programmes, JI (all from Pakistan); Dr Rajmohan Gandhi, Author, Historian and former of Rajya Sabha; Salman Haidar, Former Foreign Secretary, India; Syed Ata Hussain, Former Military Secretary and GOC Kashmir; Gul Mohammad Wani, Prof Srinagar; Prem Shankar Jha, Senior Political Analyst and Author; Siddharth Varadarajan, Journalist and former Editor of The Hindu; Jayant Prasad, Former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Nepal; Sunil Sethi, Senior Advocate J&K High Court; Jyoti Malhotra, Journalist; Suhasini Haidar, Former Editor CNN-IBN; Maya Chadda, Prof Political Science; Syeda Hameed, Author and Member, Planning Commission of India and Sushobha Barve, Executive Director, CDR (all from India).
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