Kathmandu, June 14: A two-day meeting of retired Indian and Pakistani diplomats and military officials today called for reducing tension along border areas and exchange of civil delegations as part of furthering confidence building measures between the two countries. At the end of the two-day meet, the participants adopted a ten-point resolution suggesting more dialogue on government and non-governmental level, exchange of civil delegations, reducing tension in border area and relaxing visa procedures.
"The meeting, first of its kind after December 13, 2001, has been useful in opening dialogue between the two countries at UN-official level," military analyst Gen (Retd) Ashok Mehta, said. "This has created some sort of environment for studying each other's view point and we have understood each other with greater clarity," he said.
The recommendations of the conference can be used as input for policy makers and officials of the two countries, said one of the participants.
"We need to increase people-to-people contacts and efforts should be made to normalise the bitter relations that we have and move towards more positive and cooperative attitude," said another participant. The two-day meeting debated issues like cost of Indo-Pak confrontation, coercive diplomacy, repercussions on South Asia of war in Afghanistan and military dimension of Indo-Pak stand off.
The meeting was attended by 25 eminent participants from India, Pakistan and Nepal including former diplomat Satinder Lamba, former Pakistani foreign ministers Inam ul Haque and Sartaz Aziz besides senior Indian journalists. Bureau Report