Flourishingof humanity linked to world peace

LAHORE: Renowned peace scholars from different regions of the world showed their serious concern over disturbed condition of world peace and stability and encouraged rising scope of region to region co-operation to handle the situation towards making globe a place of flourished humanity.

According to a press release issued here Sunday, they were speaking at the 2nd International Conference on Global Peace (ICGP) organised by an NGO in collaboration with Turkish think-tank, Centre for Strategic Studies of South Asia (CSSSA) in Istanbul.

Ali Sahin, Chairman of Pakistan–Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group in Turkish Parliament chaired the opening session of the conference along with Idris Gulluce, popular politician and 4th time elected member of the parliament. Idrees Gulluce, Avni Spahiu, Ambassador of Kosovo in Turkey expressed their views on the theme “Emergence of Inter-Regional Cooperation: shaping path of stability and prosperity”. Pakistan’s Counselor in Istanbul Bilal Pasha delivered the message of Sohail Mahmood, Foreign Secretary. Opening the conference, Ali Sahin said world peace was a great sacred cause for flourishing humanity and essential for every global citizen but it was under threat. He said the time has come to address all the causes that became the hurdle to global peace to defeat terrorism and all evils against the human lives and sovereignty of the nation. He said intellectuals and responsible sections of the world community now must play role to respect the geographical boundaries and to make the borders soft and use them to join the economic activities. He said that’s why Turkish government and people fully back inter-region cooperation. Keynote speaker Maj-Gen Kulatunga, Commandant of Defence Services, Command and Staff College, Sri Lanka said it was Pakistan’s cooperation to Sri Lanka that helped us to eliminate terrorism. Before the start of the opening session all participants adopted one minute silence to show respect and solidarity for the persons who had lost their lives in blatant incident of terrorism.

Senior Turkish Parliamentarian Idrees said world peace had been disturbed terribly and powerful countries involved themselves in conflicts and wars became themselves decision makers and interpreters of the issue which became the cause of terrorism. He said we need to revisit the mechanism to resolve the conflicts which should be acceptable for the whole communities.

Shamshad Khan said peace and development go hand in hand and nothing can pave the path of peace and security more than economic development through inter-regional cooperation. He said CPEC was not a development project of bilateral level, adopting an approach of inter-regional cooperation Afghanistan, Central Asian land locked states, Iran and India could be beneficiary of CPEC. He said a vigorous campaign was needed at global level to resolving the long-standing questions of Palestine and Kashmir in accordance with UN Security Council.

Prof Hassan Askari Rizvi emphasised that Asia must capitalise on its own resources and reclaim its role as a balancing factor in the uni-polar world by carving out a new niche for itself in the global geopolitical matters. All other keynote speakers, as well peace scholars condemned terrorism incidents in New Zealand and Sri Lanka and emphasised joining intellectual efforts to eliminate it. In two academic sessions, renowned peace scholars from Azerbaijan, China, France, India, Kosovo, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Sri Lanka, Turkey and USA delivered their conference papers.