Zardari calls for unconditional talks with India

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari urged India on Monday to resume the process of composite dialogue ‘unconditionally’ to jointly address common problems, including terrorism.

Violence and militancy were no solution to political problems, the president said during a meeting with Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of Kashmir Centre in Washington.

The president said the ‘merchants of war’ promoted violence for settling political disputes, but this had to be resisted through recourse to peaceful indigenous political movements.

The dialogue was halted by India after the Mumbai attacks in November last year.

The president said: ‘Pakistan wants an honourable, equitable and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.’

He said the opening of trade across the Line of Control in Kashmir by Pakistan would bring Kashmiri people closer and pave way for a peaceful political resolution to the dispute.

‘No resolution will be equitable or honourable which is not in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.’

The president praised the Kashmir Centre for highlighting the Kashmir issue internationally.

Mr Fai thanked the president for his government’s support to the cause of Kashmiri people.

Oil and gas sector

During a meeting with the chairman of BRIDAS, an international oil company of Argentina, the president praised the Argentine government for taking interest in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project and in exploration and development of gas fields in Balochistan and Sindh.

He said the petroleum exploration and production policy for 2009 offered great incentives to investors, adding that his government had adopted an approach based on the principles of de-regularisation, liberalisation and privatisation.

President Zardari said that in view of the increasing energy demand over the next five years and low indigenous production, Pakistan’s oil sector offered vast opportunities for investment.

Investment Minister Waqar Ahmed Khan, Board of Investment Chairman Saleem H. Mandviwala, Special Petroleum Secretary G.A. Sabri, Secretary Investment Tariq Iqbal Puri and Secretary General Salman Faruqui and Ambassador of Argentina Carlos Bulgheroni attended the meeting.

Upper Dir

Later, the president handed over to Najmuddin Khan, the Minister for State and Frontier Region, and MPA M. Anwar Khan a cheque for Rs11.2 million for the victims of Friday’s suicide blast in a mosque in Upper Dir.