Let us solve Kashmir for lasting friendship: Khar

India and Pakistan should find the trust and courage to resolve the differences, including Kashmir, to disarm the naysayers that have divided the entire region for the last few decades, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Thursday.

“Kashmiris should get the same rights that are afforded and awarded to other people in the world,” Khar said at the Asia Society here. “...If we are not able to find the trust and courage to resolve these issues, we will not be able to disarm the naysayers that have divided the entire region for the last few decades,” she said.

Khar, who is in New York to attend the 67th session on UN General Assembly, said, “Kashmir continues to be an issue that stokes anger and discontent among young people in the region and we think a resolution to it is urgent and important.”

Her comments came a day after President Asif Ali Zardari said Kashmir remains a symbol of failure of the UN system and Pakistan's principled position on territorial disputes remains a bedrock of its foreign policy.

Khar said that if India and Pakistan are not able to find the trust to resolve the issues among them, the two countries will not be to disarm those on both sides of the border who have created hostilities and animosity in the brains and minds of the children of the two countries against each other.

She said Pakistan does not want to develop into a country that in the future is defined as being a country that is against another nation.

“Six decades have taught us that war is not the answer. There are no military solution.

We should at least give six years to the trust building environment which will enable us us to try and solve these important issues,” she said.

Stressing that it was high time to “turn the equation around”, Khar said Pakistan has turned to the vast and untapped potential of trade and people to people contact to to help build trust and elevate the level of confidence that we have in each other “so that tomorrow when we have better trust we will be able to discuss the more difficult issues more frankly and candidly with a view to raising solutions. We decided that instead of being problem perpetrators we will be problem solvers.”

She said: “Along the way and every step we have invited our Indian friends to meet us in this journey at least half the way”.