As India and Pakistan broke the ice with the visit of Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar to Islamabad last Tuesday as part of his SAARC Yatra, a delegation from Pakistan here on Thursday called for regular exchange of views and increased trade and investment to take the relations forward and remove apprehensions among the public.
“The fact that they keep meeting is important. So if we meet more regularly and exchange views, you will find ways of removing hurdles to normalisation,” Ibn Abdur Rehman, Chairman, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and founding chair of the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, said on the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries.
The delegates, part of the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, arrived on the two-day visit on Wednesday to observe the 20th anniversary of the forum.
“Not just trade but there should be investment in each other’s country… It will be a shock absorber in case of crisis,” said Baba Ayaz, columnist. He said that people in Pakistan were not against trade and the big businesses in Pakistan wanted trade with India.
Mr. Ayaz said that in all elections after President Zia-ul-Haq’s rule in the 1980s, India bashing had never been an issue; in fact, all parties spoke about improving relations with India. “This is a major change people in India should realise,” he said.
The forum called upon universities and institutes in India to set up centres on “Pakistan studies” to educate the Indian public about the realities and dispel wrong notions.
