LAHORE, May 21: Regional cooperation process in South Asian has been held hostage by India and Pakistan.

This was observed by former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali on Wednesday. He was inaugurating a two-day symposium on regional cooperation in South Asia, organized by the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

He said that India and Pakistan needed political will to come out of the quagmire of serious political differences. He said that the leadership of both the countries should respond to the desire of their people for living in peace instead of the threat of nuclear war and acrimony and sign a treaty for reduction in arms.

He said that both the countries had become nuclear powers and could wipe out a large segment of each other’s population in the event of an accidental nuclear conflict. The leaders holding the nuclear buttons failed to understand the gravity of the situation and realize the importance of peace.

He urged Prime Minister Jamali to respond to the signal by his Indian counterpart Prime Minister Vajpayee during the latter’s recent visit to Kashmir.

He said that Pakistani’s response to the Indian offer should be at the level of political leadership and should not be limited to promises and statements.

He said that India and Pakistan should normalize the relations and agree on framework for talks afterwards. He said that no compromise draft should be presented for talks like Agra and all issues should be taken up simultaneously.

He proposed establishment of permanent commissions for dealing with issues related to Kashmir, including implementation of the UN Resolutions, demilitarization of Srinagar Valley, Wullar Barrage and violation of human rights, normalization of economic relations and monitoring of the Line of Control.

He said that normalization of relations was not possible if New Delhi continued asking Islamabad for stopping the cross-border terrorism and Pakistan continued saying that there was no such thing.

SACEPS Executive Director Prof Rahman Sobhan said that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) had become hostage to the agenda of ‘particular’ forces.

He pointed out that countries in different region had taken collective decisions in respect of global issues like the World Trade Organization but the Saarc countries did not even talk to one another.

He said that SACEP had constituted different task forces for preparing reports on different regional issues because it believed that civil society in the region should continue its discourse. The future of the people in the region should not be left at the mercy of the governments.

SACEP’s Nepal representative Dr Mohan Man Sainju said that the developed countries were benefiting from globalization but the weaker economies of developing countries had been marginalized.

He said that South Asia countries required to cooperate for facing the challenge of globalization to safeguard their interests but these were acting on policy prescriptions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He stressed the need for increasing intra regional trade and cooperation and evolution of sustainable economic policies because the World Bank and the IMF polices could lead these countries to nowhere.

SACEP’s Sri Lanka Director Dr Sainju Kalagama stressed the need for tiding over the political hurdles in regional cooperation through track II activities.

He said that all the Saarc countries could not agree on all the issues but areas of common interest could be identified for cooperation.

Maldives Planning and Development Minister Ibrahim Hussain Zaki said that the next Saarc summit was being held at Islamabad at a crucial time. SACEP could play a role in making the summit a success.

SACEP Executive Director Prof Rahman Sobhan said that politics was hindering regional cooperation in South Asia.

He said that political misunderstanding was the major roadblock in normalization of relations between India and Pakistan. Saarc could help in bringing the two countries closer like the European Union had helped bring Germany and France together.

Earlier, LUMS Pro-Chancellor Syed Babar Ali presented the welcome address.