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Bilour calls for good

Indo-Pak ties

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Ilyas Ahmed Bilour, President of Indo-Pak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has called for good neighbourly relations between India and Pakistan and hoped that the business community of the two countries would prevail upon their rulers to work for mutual economic benefits instead of raising war cries.

In a statement, he said that the business community in the two countries was totally against the policy of confrontation and wanted that it should give way to economic collaboration for a better tomorrow.

He called for putting an end to the war hysteria in India and Pakistan and asked the two countries to join hands for bringing about good neighbourly relations.

He noted that the Chief Executive of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, in his first speech after take-over had announced unilateral withdrawal of troops from the boarder area in order to de-escalate tension between the two countries.

He said that some quarters were talking of nuclear strikes that would be disastrous for both the countries. He pointed out that the two countries shared the same skies, same waters and same wind and queried how the war-mongers would escape the radio-active fallout.

Bilour asked as to what would have been the consequences if Japan had been a nuclear country when atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The solution of mutual problems and differences between the two neighbouring countries does not lie in nuclear wars, whether limited or otherwise, he said.

Bilour said that the Indian media wanted to avenge the humiliation over the hijacking of the Indian plane but no less a person than President Bill Clinton himself stated that there was no Pakistani hand in the hijacking episode.

He called upon the rulers of the two countries to fight against poverty instead of fighting against each other. So far as Pakistan was concerned its Chief Executive was sparing no effort to revive economy of the country by taking various steps aimed at improving the lot of the common people.