BANGKOK, May 10: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday said improved relations between Pakistan and India had offered a unique opportunity to the South Asian neighbours to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute and build a better future for their people.

He also described nuclear deterrence as central to Pakistan’s security but said the country was opposed to nuclear proliferation and had a strong command and control system to protect its strategic assets.

“In South Asia Pakistan is working with India through the composite dialogue to resolve all issues and ensure durable peace in the region,” he told a distinguished gathering of scholars and analysts while delivering a lecture.

The lecture was jointly organized by the Asian Institute of Technology and Thammast University in Bangkok.

He said President General Pervez Musharraf’s recent visit to New Delhi had yielded important results and made progress on confidence building measures.

“The improved relations (between Pakistan and India) offer a unique opportunity that must be seized to resolve the Kashmir dispute that relates to the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people and, therefore, cannot be sidetracked or wished away,” he added.

Prime Minister Aziz said both Pakistan and India needed to show courage, sincerity and flexibility to resolve their outstanding issues, including the Kashmir dispute, to build for their people a better future.

He explained the development of nuclear deterrence by Pakistan as ‘one consequence’ of the country’s tension with India and which played a critical role during the heightened military tension between the two South Asian states in 2002.

“Now nuclear deterrence is indispensable to our security and is a factor of peace and stability in the region,” he added.

However, the prime minister reiterated Pakistan’s opposition to an arms race in the region, either conventional or non-conventional.

“We maintain deterrence at the minimum credible level,” he said but added, “Pakistan is also opposed to nuclear proliferation and have developed strong command and control systems to protect its strategic assets.”

The prime minister spoke on the situation in Pakistan’s neighbourhood and gave his vision of the global challenges and ways to counter them.

On the country’s western borders, he said, Pakistan had engaged the government of President Hamid Karzai and supported the Bonn process to help restore normality and stability in Afghanistan.

“An Afghanistan at peace with itself is vital for stability and the economic progress of the entire region,” he added and said he had been confident the objective would be expedited with enhanced assistance by the international community for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country.

He said despite its limited resources, Pakistan had also been contributing to this process.

Prime Minister Aziz said Pakistan had been building an infrastructure and had constructed the Gwadar Port that would provide linkages between South Asia and Central Asia through Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“We have also offered an energy corridor from Central Asia and Middle East through our territory to India,” he said and hoped the realization of these projects would greatly benefit Pakistan, Afghanistan and the adjoining region.

Giving an overview of happenings on the global front, the prime minister described end of the Cold War, surge of freedom, democracy and free market as momentous developments of the last decade of the 20th century that gave reasons for optimism to the world to have a just and equitable world order.

But the optimism, he added, had been tampered by a new realism as the world remained insecure with new threat of terrorism and emergence of new conflicts as the old disputes persisted, causing tension and suffering.

The prime minister said the world had seen the assertion of unilateralism and the weakening of the UN system.

But, he added: “The experience of Iraq, however, has once again demonstrated the importance of the multilateral approach that must be strengthened.”

Referring to the new push for UN reforms, the prime minister urged the world community to act with prudence and called for deciding these reforms on the basis of consensus to prevent divisions among the UN members.—APP