Minister for youths’ role in peace

LAHORE: State Minister for Climate Change Ms Zartaj Gul has reiterated the stance of Pakistan on war on terror and said that Pakistan has said no more to proxy war.

She said Pakistan had paid the highest cost of life and property after World War II in proxy war and now the government had decided not to be part of others’ war.

She was addressing a seminar on ‘Agents of Peace’ jointly organised by Punjab University College of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Centre for Health and Gender Equality (CHANGE) at Al-Raazi Hall.

Addressing the participants, Zartaj Gul said that more than 70,000 Pakistanis had sacrificed their lives and the country’s economy had suffered serious setbacks in war on terror. She said that the incident happened in New York for which neither the soil nor any resource of Pakistan was used but Pakistan paid the highest cost to fight terrorism. She said that the cowardly attack on the children of Army Public School was the worst example of terrorism. She said there was need to find reasons behind terrorism in order to curb the menace. She said the young people of Pakistan were peacemakers and they should come forward with new ideas for promotion of peace in society. She said that the government believed in dialogue to resolve Kashmir dispute. She said that because of Imran Khan’s policies, green passport was being respected in the world; we need to eliminate culture of intolerance through debate and argument so that we could establish peace in society, she said and added that now the narrative had changed and we must not impose our ideology on others.

She said that all the academic institutions of Pakistan must join hands with Punjab University in the mission to establish peace in the country. Addressing the seminar, PU VC Prof Niaz Ahmad said that Pakistan Army and people of Pakistan had sacrificed their lives for establishing peace in Pakistan.

He said that it was responsibility of higher education institutions to produce civilised citizens and resolve issues the society was facing through innovations. He said that extremism did not exist at universities level. He said that we must ensure merit and honesty to promote peace in society. Salman Abid said academic institutions played important role in establishing any narrative.

He said the culture of tolerance would help promote harmony in our society and remove misconceptions about others. Dr Sajid Rashid said that PU is ambassador of peace and our students are making efforts to create awareness among people regarding importance of peace and tolerance. Shakeel Jazib said that extremism could be eliminated only through joint efforts of the government and the society. Later, souvenirs were presented to distinguished guests.