LAHORE
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Pakistan is result of international powers pressure while India also wants to divert attention from its internal issues and to give impression to the world that it is elder of the region and wants to create peace which is altogether opposite of real situation.
These views were expressed by experts in Jang Economic Session on ‘Objectives of Modi visit to Pakistan – Peace or Corridor access’. The panellists were Shamshad Ahmed Khan, Ehsan Wayen, Khurshid Ahmed, Dewan Ghulam Mohiyuddin, and Asif Baig Mirza while hosted by Sikindar Lodhi. Shamshad Ahmed Khan said that peace was not important for Pakistan or this region only but for the entire world; so Indian prime minister’s visit to Pakistan was good. He said Modi’s negativity towards Pakistan was exposed to everyone and in such situation his visit and revival of dialogue was a good development. He said issues between the two countries would not resolve accidentally rather a complete process was required for it. He said Modi had maintained pressure on Pakistan but no counter strategy was adopted by Pakistan. He said positive hopes should be kept with next month dialogue’s revival. He called for strengthening internal defence.
Ehsan Wayen said that keeping good ties with India was part of Pakistan’s political and national policies. He said peace creation could reduce defence expenditures and improve economy which would directly benefit the public. He said 65 percent of population was living below the poverty line due to which disappointment and suicide incidents were growing.
He said Modi had visited Pakistan on international pressure; so parties of both sides should support the peace process and try to resolve Kashmir and other issues through single platform. He said that increase in bilateral trade and peace would benefit public and economy of the two countries. Khurshid Ahmed said that dialogues and positive change had started between the two countries due to global pressure. He said Pakistan was geographically at an important place in the region, so India and other regional countries wanted dialogues. He said Kashmir and Siachen issues should be resolved on priority basis so that leadership should take all stakeholders in confidence to start objective dialogues. He believed that political leaders could not resolve Kashmir issue independently so everyone should jointly do effort for it.
Dewan Ghulam Mohiyuddin said that India’s objective was access to corridor to reach Central Asian States and it was the objective of Modi’s recent visit. He suggested issuing declaration about the meeting so that doubts could be removed. He said Indian access to corridor would negatively affect Pakistan’s economy while dialogues process should be continued between the two countries.
Asif Baig Mirza said Modi’s visit was a friendly gesture which positively impacted the stock markets. He said historically bilateral relations between the two countries were not good and no Indian prime minister visited Pakistan since 2004; so economic objectives were behind this visit. He said Pakistan should prioritise national interest in dialogues and took the parliament in confidence before taking any decision.
