June 13, 2002	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1423

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WASHINGTON, June 12: The international community has been urged to look beyond the immediate crisis in South Asia and remain engaged in the search for a fair and just solution of the Kashmir issue.

Speaking at an event organized by the Meridian Centre, a Washington-based organization set up in 1960 to promote cultural understanding, Pakistan ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said the world “has to tell India that it cannot persuasively and legitimately argue any longer that Kashmir is not their business. The world has seen that when war is threatened in South Asia, stopping it becomes everyone’s business”.

She said India could not selectively invite the international community’s intercession to promote some of its limited objectives and then switch it off when told to address the substance of the Kashmir issue. A “pro-active, sustained and result-oriented engagement of the world in the Kashmir issue” was necessary after the current crisis was peacefully resolved.

“Our message is: the international community needs to stay engaged”, she said, and stressed that that the United States, as a friend of India and Pakistan, was in a unique position to facilitate a peace process in South Asia that led to a fair Kashmir solution and durable peace in the region. Ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people was crucial, and whatever was acceptable to the Kashmiri people would be acceptable to Pakistan.

On Pakistan-US relations, Dr Lodhi said ties between the two countries should go beyond counter-terrorism and be sustainable over the long term. “Pakistan does not want a dependency relationship, as happened during the Cold War, but a partnership for mutual benefit. A partnership with across-the-board cooperation and one in which trade and investment are more important than aid.”