ISLAMABAD, March 7: President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that without achieving peace and harmony in the region no objective of Saarc could be achieved.

“Have we made any progress to achieve peace and harmony in the region? The honest answer is No,” he further stated.

Inaugurating the 2nd Saarc Information Ministers’ Conference, the president called upon the participants to use their energies for removing various conflicts in the region with a view to having certain, meaningful cooperation among the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. “I am sorry to say that there is restricted scope for cooperation ... and there is a need to have the spirit of equality for the collective good of our people.”

He said the restrictive scope of Saarc needed to be expanded to address regional disputes collectively in a spirit of sovereign equality. The avenues for cooperation, he pointed out, were abundant and “we only have to show will and sincerity in developing a cooperative ethos”.

“Political disputes resolution sits at the core of meaningful collaboration. Let us all show the will to change the status quo,” he said. “Pakistan will not be found wanting.”

Referring to the speech by the outgoing chairman of Saarc Information Ministers, Bangladesh Information Minister Abdul Mueen Khan that it had taken him 24 hours to reach Islamabad, President Musharraf said he was prepared to remove ban on overflights if it was reciprocated by India. He then referred to the Indian information minister, saying, “if she has the authority we can immediately remove the ban on overflights”.

At the end of the president’s speech, Sushma Swaraj said that she was only an information minister and that she did not have the mandate to talk about issues like removing ban on flights.

President Musharraf said that Saarc members were facing a great challenge to have greater cooperation. “And here the media has the power to build friendship and harmony among our member states,” he pointed out.

He called upon the member countries to learn and help each other from their experiences. He said that Bangladesh was a success story in population planning while Pakistan was facing this problem, so it could benefit from the experience of Bangladesh.

Similarly, he pointed out, India had a special strength in Information Technology and added that all the other Saarc members, because of their knowledge of English language, had the potential to share the gains in this field.

The president said that Saarc information ministers had gathered to find ways and means to cooperate in the field of information and media. This, he added, was a great challenge because the dividends could be enormous as the media had the power to build friendship, associations, harmony and understanding on the one side. However, he observed, the other side of media was that it could damage and aggravate misunderstandings.

He said that media should also be used towards developing commercial and trade relationship. “In its international dimension, we need to use media and internet towards commercial and trade advantage”.

He said a joint media effort could be launched for encouraging tourism as this region offered many tourist attraction sites.

The press in Pakistan, he said, enjoyed complete freedom and added, “there is a tremendous amount of criticism, including that of his government”.

The government, he said, had set up the Pakistan Electronic Media Authority and hoped that it would usher in a media revolution.

The president announced that the government would soon be launching a ‘Virtual University’ project for distance learning in all these areas of regional cooperation. “They can develop a stronger tele-communication network between the members states and expand distance learning facilities”.

SAARC also includes Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan.