No peace without co-operation, experts say

Yusuf Jameel, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: September 13. 2009 12:23AM UAE / September 12. 2009 8:23PM GMT

SRINAGAR, INDIA // Experts from Central and South Asia met in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, in August to discuss strategies for defusing the region’s ethnic and political conflicts and boosting trade and cultural relations.

The Conference on Eurasian Peace and Co-operation was organised by Kashmir University’s Centre of Central Asian Studies (CCAS), and brought together academics and government officials from the region and beyond.

Kashmir has been tied both culturally and economically to Central Asia for thousands of years, and the idea of holding the three-day conference in Srinagar, the third of its kind, was also to revive the old relationship, which deteriorated in the aftermath of partition in 1947, the conference organisers said.

Prof Riyaz Punjabi, the vice chancellor of Kashmir University, said the state’s historical links to Central Asia should be restored, like the opening of the Silk Route. “It is my dream to ride on horseback from Kashmir to Central Asia via the Silk Route,” he said.

During the debates on issues confronting the Eurasian region, experts and academics suggested alternatives to defuse the numerous conflicts. Among the issues discussed were the war in Afghanistan, the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, the internal strife in Kashmir, Chechnya and border disputes between India and China.

“Very simple,” said the Kashmir University professor Mushtaq A Kaw, who is also the director of area studies at the CCAS. “The contending parties should take cognisance of the ground realities and prefer coexistence to co-annihilation” while focusing on the nature and character of the potential threats to the region.

“The conflicts can be resolved by taking all parties into confidence through peaceful dialogue. Peace is a prerequisite for regional co-operation, which entails the concerned parties to slash down expenditure on defence and [its] diversion to works of public utility,” Prof Kaw said.

Many of the participants argued that political reconciliation and communal harmony could be created only by focusing on the cultural similarities of the regions’ various groups. Wu Fuhuan, the president of the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences in China, said: “The need of the hour is to improve and strengthen cultural ties in order to maintain peace and stability in the Eurasian continent.”

Backing his sentiments, KK Chakarvarty, the chancellor of the National University of Planning, Education and Administration in New Delhi, said: “Culture can play an effective role in eradicating the conflicts and [facilitating] long lasting peace and progress.”

Mondira Dutta of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University said the immediate need was to improve the transport network for economic development of the Eurasian region.

The consensus among the participants was that there can be no lasting peace without co-operation, and no co-operation without peace. They stressed the need of resolving all disputes – political and otherwise – between the countries of the Eurasian region amicably.

In his keynote address, Gregory Gleason, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, said: “There are two choices available to countries: the choice by which they get what they want, and the strategic choice where they think others are deciding for them. If the latter is our goal, let’s take a rethink. Ideas are more powerful than any weapon.”

Turning to the profitability of regional co-operation, Saidbeg Saidov, the ambassador of Tajikistan to India, said: “Central Asian countries have a lot of natural and mineral resources and India has a huge potential to co-operate with these countries. Together we should work for the security of the region because security [in fighting threats posed by terrorism] is the first opportunity to co-operate”.

He also said Central and South Asian countries should collaborate on infrastructure that integrates the region, and discussed constructing joint power, motorway and railway projects.

yjameel@thenational.ae