Pak-India relations: What good is cricket diplomacy?

Senior journalists, intellectuals argue for putting people first.

LAHORE:

Pakistan and India need to talk with an open heart to bring peace to the region. This was agreed upon by senior journalists and intellectuals speaking at a seminar on Cricket Diplomacy Makes a Difference arranged by the South Asian Free Media Association on Wednesday.

The participants said that Pakistan’s policy makers needed to keep in view the country’s economic interests while formulating its foreign policy. IA Rehman, Prof Hasan Askari Rizvi and Khalid Ahmed were prominent among the speakers. Rehman said that it was not the first time the cricket policy had been resorted to. He regretted that no major breakthrough had been possible ever. He said that the contacts between people of the two countries had certainly increased, however, at government levels flexibility was still missing. Ahmed said that whenever cricket diplomacy was attempted in the past, relations between both the countries had actually worsened, making things more difficult for Pakistan. Prof Rizvi said that resolving problems through ‘cricket diplomacy’ was a non-conventional method. Like always, he added, the meetings between the leaders of both the countries had again been fruitless.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2011.