Common faith, history, culture, languages and interlinked socio-economic realities and opportunities provide the basis and way forward for both Afghanistan and Pakistan to ensure peace and build their bright future together. This was the message of a two-day conference in Islamabad titled, "Pakistan and Afghanistan: Towards an Ideal Bilateral Arrangement," jointly organised by Institute of Policy Studies and Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies (CSRS), Kabul on 16-17 September.
The speakers at the event demanded that the policymakers, both in Kabul and Islamabad, must not waste further time and immediately initiate comprehensive dialogues and take confidence building measures to lay the ground for strong and everlasting relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan and counter the nefarious designs of the international and regional players who are bent upon creating differences between the two brotherly nations trying to derail every single effort to bring sustainable peace and stability in the region.
The roundtable was addressed by a number of Afghan scholars and policy analysts including Dr Abdul Baqi Amin, director general, CSRS, Dr Fazal Hadi Wazeen, Dr Waheedullah Muslih and Engr. Hamid Durrani. From the Pakistan side the key discussants were former Ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand, DG-IPS Khalid Rahman, Air Commodore Khalid Iqbal (Retd), Brigadier Said Nazir (Retd), and former ambassador Ayaz Wazir, Irfan Shahzad, Dr Anwar Shah, and Mairaj-ul-Hamid.-PR