India, Pakistan must focus on trade ties: Zardari

March 1st, 2008 Sana · No Comments

Islamabad: India and Pakistan could set aside the Kashmir issue to be resolved by a future generation while they focus on trade and economic ties to improve bilateral relations, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said.

Dismissing the belief in some sections in India that the Kashmir issue could best be sorted out while the army is in power in Pakistan, Zardari, said people-to-people contacts and inter-dependence in trade could help negate the “fear factor” in both countries. The PPP is set to form the new government in Pakistan.

Special: Power game in Pakistan

If India were to invite the new Pakistani prime minister for a visit, he would go to Delhi with the leaders of all political parties that would back the PPP’s government to signal Islamabad’s desire for better relations, the husband of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto said.

While conceding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf “may have probably had the best understanding ever,” he said: “I want to take (the relations) to a stage of such confidence-building that the fear factor diminishes from both angles.”

“People-to-people contacts should be improved, ” Zardari told interviewer Karan Thapar on the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ programme.

When it was pointed out that some sections in Delhi believed the Kashmir issue could best be sorted out when the army is ruling in Islamabad, Zardari said: “Well, we’ve had army rule for eight years. Have they solved it? I don’t need to convince them, it talks for itself.”