ISLAMABAD, Sept 3: Four French climbers have arrived in Pakistan with plans for a joint “peace expedition” with five locals to the Diran peak in Nagar-Gilgit area. Their leader, Francois Carrel, told a press conference in Islamabad on Saturday that the nine-member expedition was meant to promote inter-faith harmony and unify different communities in the restive Northern Areas.

“Conflicts between communities threaten not only the peace and security of a country but also impede the way to progress,” he said.

Mr Carrel said the expedition would leave for the 7,255 metre-high peak as soon as it got the necessary permit from the Ministry of Tourism. However, three members of the expedition were already at the base camp, he said.

Flanked by the remaining members of the expedition, the leader said it would be the first-ever Pakistan-French expedition to the Diran peak.

He said the recent outbreak of religious violence in the Northern Areas had deeply hurt the people of the area living abroad. It also damaged the image of Pakistan as a responsible moderate Islamic country, built by President Pervez Musharraf in the aftermath of 9/11.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the problem of peace and security is among the most urgent issues on the national level, and also in the Northern Areas,” he said.

He said the breathtakingly beautiful Northern Areas of Pakistan were famous for their natural beauty and for the giant peaks of the Hindu Kush, Karakorum and Himalayan mountain ranges.

The region is also home to ancient cultures, which gave birth to some of the world’s oldest languages and treasure-trove for anthropologists and linguists.

“The inhabitants of the Northern Areas may be poor but they are pure in their hospitality and friendship,” he said.

Mr Carrel said friends in France who know this well, thought it urgent to organize a symbolic peace expedition to the region.

Dialogue is the best way to establish a peaceful society on the basis of mutual respect and tolerance, he said holding up Europe as a good example where countries had acquired ‘unity within diversity’.

Answering a question, he said the European community was still afraid of sending climbers to Pakistan. Since 2001, level of tourism remains too little in Pakistan.

He said the expedition was meant to send a message to the West that there was no reason to be scared of coming to Pakistan for tourism and trekking.

To another question, he said he was also the member of another peace expedition to Noshak, Afghanistan, which was climbed for the first time in 25 years.