Pak wants engagement with India to find solution to all issues

Yoshita Singh
Boston, Oct 19 (PTI) Pakistan Tuesday said it is ready
to engage with India to find an "amicable" solution to
outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, and asked the
US "to do everything in its power" to resolve this dispute.
"Pakistan is willing to engage India in a
comprehensive dialogue to normalise relations between the two
countries by finding amicable solutions to all outstanding
issues including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir,"
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said during a lecture at
the Harvard Kennedy School.
He said that the countries have to "realistically
understand" that improved relations between the two nuclear
armed powers of South Asia - Pakistan and India - "is the
missing key to regional peace."
"We urge the US, a friend of both India and Pakistan,
to do everything in its power to resolve this conflict and
remove one more source of Muslim discontent and anger, taking
oxygen out of the terrorist's fire," he told a gathering of
over 700 students and professors at the School here.
He said "unfortunately" India and Pakistan have some
"outstanding issues" and the "US has to realise" that those
issues have to be addressed.
"We can't wish them (outstanding issues) away. They
keep haunting us. We have to address them, the sooner we
address them, the better it is for the entire region."
He said while there is large constituency for peace on
both sides of the border, there is also a "vociferous
minority... jingoistic voices" on both sides.
He, however, added that new generations are "taking
control" on both sides, who have "not seen the pains of the
partition" but realise what the "dividends" of peace would be.
"Pakistan views the prevailing situation in Kashmir
with great concern," he said, adding that "men and women of
goodwill" in both India and Pakistan know that "this issue
must be addressed once for all if the Kashmir time bomb was to
be diffused."
Qureshi said terrorism is a "common enemy" for India
and Pakistan and the two countries need to "collectively"
fight the menace.
He said that if India and Pakistan "turn away" from
each other, terrorists and extremists will be the "net
beneficiaries."
He said the two countries can tackle extremism and
terrorism if both sides realise that "this is the common enemy
and we need a common approach to defeat this menace... If we
turn away, if we disengage, they will be the net
beneficiaries." PTI YAS
RET


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