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Sunday, November 06, 2011
Indo-Pak trade ties to help resolve major rifts: Khar* Foreign minister says relations with US, India are improving * Says India has assured it will not oppose Pakistan at WTO
LAHORE: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Saturday that Pakistan believed in peaceful co-existence and that the corner stone of its foreign policy was to have cordial and good relations with its neighbours.
She said this while addressing a press conference. Khar said that Pakistan’s foreign policy was aimed at establishing good relations with its neighbours and added that troubled foreign relations had improved in recent months, which was evident from the upcoming trade talks with New Delhi. She said that normal trade relations with India would result in progress on other issues between the two countries.
The foreign minister noted that relations would further improve as India had supported Pakistan in the United Nations Security Council non-permanent seat elections for the first time in history. She also congratulated the nation on winning the seat and added that it showed that Pakistan was not isolated in the comity of nations. She said that this win was the result of efforts by the Foreign Office and the untiring hard work of Pakistani diplomats working in United States.
She said that India had assured Pakistan that it would withdraw its opposition in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which would pave way for Pakistan to get trade concessions offered by the European Union (EU) and would also help Pakistan obtain direct access to European markets.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Khar strongly denied that Pakistan was not committed to finalising Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status for India, as alleged by an unnamed Indian government official on Friday, who said Islamabad was “backtracking” on the issue in the face of domestic opposition.
“There is absolutely no question of backtracking of cabinet approval of trade normalisation with India,” she said. “I want to completely dismiss any indication that there’s any retraction on what we said.”
Khar said the two countries’ commerce secretaries would meet in mid-November to hammer out the details of the trade agreement, but that there was no lack of commitment to the agreement itself.
“The cabinet very clearly gave them a way forward, which is trade normalisation with India,” she said. Khar said relations with the United States were also on the mend, with “a complete convergence of stated interests” on Afghanistan. “Nothing would make us happier than a strong government in Afghanistan,” she said. “I look at the last few weeks, and relations with the US have been generally positive. It’s basically the operational details to agree on.” staff report/reutersCourtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk