KARACHI, Oct 5: The next round of talks on the EU-Pakistan readmission agreement, which promises a framework for the return of illegal immigrants from Europe, is expected to commence by the end of this month.

EU Ambassador Ilkka Uusitalo said this while addressing a seminar on "Immigration to Europe from South Asia and the Muslim world" here on Tuesday. Mr Uusitalo dwelt on EU's major concerns vis-a-vis migrants.

He said the readmission agreement talks had started in April and added that during the course of negotiations, Pakistan saw it as an attempt the EU had made to expel large number of Pakistanis from Europe. But those fears, he stressed, were based on misinformation and unfounded speculation.

He pointed out that immigration issues had become global and highly political and sensitive. Therefore, he said, international cooperation was needed to solve this problem.

The two-day seminar was organized by the Area Study Centre for Europe of the University of Karachi in collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation and inaugurated by KU Vice Chancellor Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui.

The ambassador said a common perception among the citizens of many European countries was that foreign workers took away jobs from them while taking advantage of their social system.

He said the issue of human smuggling and trafficking must also be seen as a problem in the home country of a person involved. In Pakistan, he added, there was plenty of information available about alleged masterminds of human smuggling, but there was little evidence of real action against such elements. There was a need for 'more decisive' action in this regard, he emphasized.

He said immigration continued to play an important role in the economic and social developments of the European Union, especially in the face of an aging and shrinking workforce.

He stressed the need for a level playing field in terms of admission policies for economic migrants across the union. Inaugurating the seminar, Dr Siddiqui asked the European Union to adopt 'rational' immigration and asylum policies.

He noted that Europe had played a positive role in the crisis- ridden post-Sept 11 international scenario and it was imperative that the EU continued to do so in the future.

He was of the view that EU policies on immigration and asylum "will have a deep impact not only on Muslims and other South Asian immigrant communities already living in Europe and on those aspiring to immigrate to Europe, but (they will) also generally affect Europe's relations with the Muslim world".

"The need of the hour," he said, "is conciliation, cooperation and mutual understanding between the West and Islam." Any actions on either side that gave rise to misgivings could be fatal for the world peace, he warned, saying that moderation in speech and action was essential.

In this context, he said, a sympathetic understanding and accommodation of each other's cultural values was an important step towards securing a stable world peace.

The vice-chancellor called for adhering to the spirit of the Barcelona Declaration that had established the Euro-Mediterranean partnership between North African and Southern Mediterranean countries, most of them Muslim, on the one hand, and the EU member states on the other.

In her welcome address, director of the ASCE, Prof Dr Naveed Ahmad Tahir and resident representative of Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad, Dr Andreas Rieck, also spoke.