NEW DELHI: Pakistan sees no problems with India’s future presence in Afghanistan if New Delhi mends its fences with Islamabad, former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said here on Friday.

“I am saying as much in my forthcoming book,” Mr Kasuri told Dawn.

“If there is a paradigm shift in India-Pakistan relations, and we become normal friendly neighbours, I foresee no difficulty for us to accept India having as much access to Afghanistan as it wants.”

Mr Kasuri was speaking after a two-day Track II meeting of India-Pakistan delegations he headed with India’s Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Pakistan’s Regional Peace Institute and Hanns Seidel Foundation sponsored the meeting, the first round of which was held earlier in Islamabad.

Mr Kasuri commented also on the India-Pakistan stalemate over Islamabad’s proximity to Kashmir’s Hurriyat Conference. “My personal view without prejudice to what India’s logic may be, is that it is better to have such meetings in the open rather than to meet secretly in Berlin or somewhere.”

The conference encouraged the two prime ministers to resume their stalled bilateral dialogue when they visit Kathmandu next week to attend the 18th Saarc summit.

Its four sessions over two days were divided into four topics, irreversible engagement at the political and security level, unleashing the business potential and constructive cooperation in social sector such as poverty alleviation.

The fourth topic they covered focused on their soft power: media, films, tourism and people-to-people contacts.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2014