Journalist for continued Pak-India engagement

ISLAMABAD:

A senior Indian journalists on Tuesday stressed the need for continues dialogue between Pakistan and India to resolve the outstanding issues and for greater good of the two people.

Vinod Sharma, who is political editor at Hindustan Times, was delivering a talk on “Indo-Pak Relations: Moving Beyond Acrimony and Suspicion” at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).

“Any prime minister’s commitment to his country cannot be questioned. But the political leaders have to take risks to create and expand the constituency of peace. In politics, you have to take risks in order to break out of the gridlock of clichés and acrimony,” said Sharma.

“While Pathankot remains a huge challenge, it can become an opportunity for mutually reassuring commitment on terrorism, which is a common enemy,” he said.

“We must stop demonizing each other’s national heroes. There should be an institutional mechanism for a regular discourse among historians. Purpose should be to get past the acrimonious past. We have to bequeath a future to our children different from the bitter past.

“Both states must take steps to develop confidence-building measures and facilitate dialogue among historians, media, scholars, and film-makers as our relations don’t have much hope from accords.

“Kashmir can’t be resolved through treaties. It will have to be resolved through honest talks and sharing of problems,” said Sharma.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2016.