Diane Glazer, Curtis Mack, dear friends and members of the World Affairs Council, and Pakistani-Americans, I feel very much at home because of the warm welcome and the undeserving praise that I've just had showered on me.  But praise, no matter how undeserved, is always welcomed, so I accept it.  It's a great honor to be here and to speak on a subject of importance to us and our region and, indeed, to the world, because South Asia is no longer a nuclear-free zone; therefore, peace and security are of international concern. 

I'm delighted that this occasion coincides with a major breakthrough in the war against terrorism in which we are privileged to be a frontline member of the international coalition and have been working closely with the United States in this crusade against terror.  I believe that the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and a number of his associates actually takes care of much of the top leadership of the Al Qaeda and probably has dealt a backbreaking blow to that terrorist movement.  So we all have reason to celebrate and be grateful for this.  I must just put in a word for my country and say that since the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom, the ousting of the Taliban, and the dispersal of Al Qaeda, Pakistan has played the role in apprehending more than 500 suspected members of the Al Qaeda, including practically all of the big fish who have been taken off the streets.  That, I believe, underscores the continuing relevance and value of Pakistan's contribution to the coalition. 

I say this because, at times, we have seen media reports calling into question President Musharraf's commitment and Pakistan's commitment to this war.  I think the recent developments and the record show that those stories are way off the mark and I know that the statements of President Bush and of the U.S. government endorse this point of view because they have been absolutely unstinting in their praise of Pakistan's role.  So I'd like our friends here to appreciate that fact as I know you do.

Peace and security in South Asia is the number one issue that is listed on the agenda of India and Pakistan for their talks.  This agenda was finalized when I was in India as High Commissioner.  The two foreign secretaries got together and, in 1997, in Islamabad, an agreed agenda was announced, to the media, and peace and security was the number one item.

The number two item was Jammu and Kashmir.  The two countries have agreed that the two items which were to be dealt with by the foreign ministers themselves  were peace and security, and Jammu and Kashmir, both of them recognizing the integral connection between the two and such, indeed, is the case. 

Both India and Pakistan are nuclear states.  We have reacted to the fact that India became nuclear.  India did explode nuclear weapons in a number of nuclear tests in 1974.  They called it “a peaceful nuclear explosion.”  Some even said it was probably not even an explosion it was actually an implosion.  Not many people knew the difference between the two, and India claims it did not recognize its nuclear capability after that test.  Nevertheless, many years later, on May 9 and May 11, 1998, India conducted two sets of nuclear tests and Pakistan responded two weeks later with its own set of nuclear tests.  Both countries have formally declared themselves nuclear weapon states.  The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1172 asking both countries to observe restraint because formally speaking the UNSC recognizes five nuclear weapon states; those are the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.  So legally speaking, they did not endorse Pakistan becoming a member of this club; nonetheless, they took note of the fact that it had happened and asked both of these countries to address the root cause of tension between them including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. 

So in order to strengthen peace and security, which is absolutely essential in South Asia, India and Pakistan do need to find a way of meaningfully addressing this issue which has kept them apart for 55 years since the two countries came into being and which has, on more than one occasion, lead to the breakdown of the peace.  Now that they have become nuclear weapon states it's absolutely urgent to ensure that there is never another breakdown of peace as almost happened last summer when India put a million people on its borders, threatening Pakistan and Pakistan countered by deploying its own army.  We have to find ways of avoiding such situations, particularly because, as nuclear weapon states, we are literally two minutes, missile time, away from each other.  When the United States and the Soviet Union had their standoff, there was the ocean between them.  They had enough warning time that should anything go wrong, there would be enough time to find out whether it was a false alarm or not.  Later on, when the United States situated some of its missiles in Western Europe, even so there was much less.  But warning time still existed which enabled them to sort of check with each other to see if anything that appeared on radar screens was the real thing or not.  Pakistan and India are so close to each other that we won't have enough reaction time and one false rumor could actually trigger a catastrophe.  So it's absolutely essential that India and Pakistan find an answer to the problem of decent security in South Asia.  One of the most important ways of doing this is to address the one issue that has kept them apart.

The [Jammu and Kashmir] issue has bedeviled the relationship and in the past, threatened the peace, and continues yet to threaten the peace.  This is an issue on which [India and Pakistan] differ enormously.  Our views are mutually exclusive.  We recognize that this is a complex issue in which both sides have invested a lot of time and political emotion.  It won't be resolved in a day, but if we can both agree that it has to be resolved and that it has to be resolved in a manner that is principled, that is acceptable to the people concerned, we believe that there is a way to do that.  That is by implementing the existing and still valid U.N. Security Council Resolution on Jammu and Kashmir. 

India takes a different point of view. Whatever our point of view is we must also realize that, until we can work out a modus vivendi, a way to live with each other despite our differences we will not be able to achieve the implementation of our respective social and domestic agendas for our peoples. 

India's domestic agenda and the Pakistani domestic agenda are both aimed at poverty reduction, improving the quality of life for the peoples of their respective countries.  This will not happen unless you can achieve a rate of economic growth that is in excess of seven to eight percent for at least 20 years.  China, which has grown at between eight and ten percent since 1979, has quintupled if not sextupled its GNP and has released something over 350 million people from life beneath the poverty line.  That is one of the greatest contributions to human rights — to relieve people from life below the poverty line. 

India and Pakistan have the largest concentration of people living below the poverty line in the world.  We have an obligation to our own people to release them, and the only way we can do that is by maintaining the kind of growth rates that will do that over a sufficiently long period.  The only way we can do that is to reduce tension among ourselves, to be able to reduce military expenditures, and to be able to attract foreign direct investment along with its technology, and management, in order to bring about a transformation of our societies and our economies. 

In order for us to do this we need to do many things on the domestic front.  Many things.  But what both of us needs is a peaceful neighborhood, a neighborhood that is conducive to foster trade and have foreign investment in our countries.  And forgive me for taking South Asia to mean primarily India and Pakistan it is not.  There are other countries, but the peace and security of the region has been affected by the quality of relations between India and Pakistan more than by any other factor. 

So, what we need to do is bring about a conducive neighborhood for rapid economic growth, and that requires us to deal with the outstanding issue of Jammu and Kashmir and, indeed, all other issues.  How can we do this with our different points of view, given our tendency to level charge and counter-charge against each other, given the difficulty we have encountered in previous dialogues to talk with each other rather than talking past each other, given the fact that we have been living a zero-sum relationship right now?  Movement is always seen as a gain for one party and a setback for the other.  How can we bring about a situation in which movement can actually be seen by the public in both countries as a gain?  That is the challenge before us, and it's only if we make progress towards meeting that challenge that we will simultaneously bring about an environment in which we will be able to attract the kind of business, investment, tourism and interface with the rest of the world that is necessary for high growth rates. 

When President Musharraf visited Agra in 2001 he came up with an idea which he put to his Indian colleagues and counterparts and, like the military man he is, he put it in very simple straightforward language.  He said, “look, we have a problem we can't agree on right now.  This problem is affecting the peace.  We need to do something about it.  Can we agree on that?  O.K.  If we can agree on that, can we start to talk with each other? Because if we don't talk with each other we won't resolve anything.”  Well, the first step had already been taken because Prime Minister Vajpayee had invited our President Musharraf to Agra and were talking once again.  The first step was taken.

The second step is what we talk about.  There are lots of issues to talk about, but the one issue that keeps us apart, on which we differ so enormously but which impacts so negatively on the relationship is Jammu and Kashmir because we have different views about the issue.  Can we agree on that?  Now when President Musharraf met with the cream of the Indian media over breakfast in Agra he put this question to them, and one and all without exception they said this to the President of Pakistan, “We agree with you that this is the most important issue; however, we have a different point of view on this issue.  We have problems with you on this issue, but that issue is the issue that needs to be addressed for us to bring about an improvement in relations.  That's an issue on which we have no problem with you.”  Fine.  So that's the second step.

The third step.  How do we make progress on this issue?  Well, we have mutually exclusive points of view so let's try to eliminate those points of view, which cannot be the basis of an agreement.  We have our point of view and India has its point of view.  India does not accept our point of view; we don't accept their point of view.  Is there any middle ground conceivably?  Let's work and see the range of ways of moving forward which will also be consistent with principle, consistent with the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, because that's a vital element.  If we can make some agreement on this — which will probably be very difficult for us to agree anytime soon — but if we get into that exercise and we give it priority, we educate our public opinion that this is the challenge before us. 

We need to move towards accommodating each other's points of view in a manner that doesn't deprive the Kashmiris of their rights and is consistent with the interests of both India and Pakistan.  Then we're be in business and we can build up scenarios on which we might begin to agree over a period of time.  Simultaneously, as we do this, we can move forward on a number of fronts — economic front, political front, cultural front, sports front — so that we can have positive feedback into the relationship and then we don't just have to level charge and countercharge against each other which is what the situation is today. 

We believe we have the better part of the argument and India thinks it has the better part of the argument.  I'm talking here to an American audience and, therefore, I'm trying to be as objective as possible.  This is the way forward.  It should, in principle, be acceptable to both parties.  Why?  Because there's no other way forward.  If one side tries to impose its point of view on the other there will be no forward movement.  If there's no forward movement, there will be no mitigation of tension.  If there's no mitigation of tension, there will be no growth and if there's no growth the quality of life won't improve, the situation will be ripe for all kinds of populist movements, all kinds of extremism, all kinds of desperation, all kinds of things which aren't very good and we know what that leads to. 

Everything in the universe except God Almighty has a cause.  Even terrorism has a cause, and if we want to eliminate evil things, including terrorism, we don't address just the symptoms.  We have to go after the symptoms — and the symptoms are bad — but ultimately, if we want to permanently rid ourselves of the malaise of a situation, we have to go after the root cause.  And what is the root cause?  A sense of injustice, a sense of hopelessness, a sense of there being no solution, that all doors are locked in your face.  What do you do?  You subject or you resist.  People shouldn't be faced with these kinds of choices.  There should always be more hope, and that is why we are particularly saddened to see India in its present mood refusing to talk to Pakistan, because while we have serious differences, the more serious our differences the greater the need to talk.  We're not going to agree anytime soon, but there's no way we'll even begin addressing those differences until we talk.  This is a fundamental truth.  So I hope that after the conference which was supposed to have taken place last January but did not because India refused to come, I hope it will be possible to reach into that meeting later this year, which might give an opportunity for the prime ministers of both countries, the prime minister of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India, to meet with each other and to resume a dialogue — a dialogue is not a favor to anyone.  A dialogue is a recognition of a necessity.  [If] you don't dialogue — you don't answer to a necessity and the problem remains unresolved.

So these are the first steps.  I think it was Confucius who said “You take the first step on a 1000-mile journey, and it's a 1,000-mile journey no longer.”   So we need to take that first step, that first step is the resumption of dialogue with the intent to make serious progress towards resolving the issue that has kept us apart for so long.  That issue happens to be Jammu and Kashmir, but there are other serious issues.  Any allegation, any complaint we have about each other, all of these will be on the table.  Anything that needs to happen has to happen and it probably needs to take place on the basis of reciprocity — one side can't demand one party to take measures and actions which it feels is necessary without [readiness] to take actions and measures in response to that.  As the old saying goes, “It takes two to tango,” and it takes two hands to clap, so we are ready — our hand is extended and we hope that India's hand will also be extended.  This is very, very important if we all want to bring about a regional order and a world order in which the level of hopelessness, desperation and extremism are reduced.

The other issue which is germane to peace and security in our region is the situation in Afghanistan.  Huge progress has been taken, the initial step has been taken, a regime has been ousted, a terrorist group has been disbursed, a lot of work needs to be done.  There are not as many people as is often thought of in Pakistan of the Al Qaeda or the Taliban even though we have a porous border which is 1,400 miles long.  Why is that?  Because we have put 70,000 people along that border despite our difficult situation with India in the east.  We have put 70,000 troops there.  We have the closest of cooperation with the FBI and the CIA with respect to cracking down on any elements that may be in our western border area or in the cities, and the successes there show that we have made colossal progress.  

The big fish by and large have been caught with the possible exception of the biggest, who may or may not be alive.  None of us know about that but if he's alive he's probably very, very ineffective right now.  But Afghanistan is in danger once again of being neglected because another problem is going to become the center of attraction and it's very, very typical for the human mind, no matter what resources may be available, to embrace two No. 1 priorities.  If Iraq becomes the No. 1 priority and nation-building becomes the No. 1 priority there, will there be enough time and energy to devote to the complex task that has to be undertaken and achieved in Afghanistan? 

Pakistan is probably the country with the closest link with Afghanistan when it comes to reconstructing that country.  The people who straggle the border, who happen to be the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and twice the number who exist in Pakistan, have a natural role to play.  We were the natural platform that led to the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviet military occupation, and we'll be ready to play a critical role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.  You will be happy to know that President Karzai and President Musharraf have a very close relationship — they're on the phone to each other constantly.  President Karzai will be visiting Pakistan once again and the United States, I hope, will play a catalytic role for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and also for encouraging India and Pakistan, particularly India, which is the reluctant party here, to resume the dialogue that can lead to a strengthening of the structures of peace and security in our nuclear region.

Thank you very much.