Strongly pitching for a “new pathway” to resolve all issues with India, Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday said the two sides need to show flexibility and honour commitments made to each other having taken “baby steps” in improving their ties. India and Pakistan require to build their relationship on “trust” and that sincere efforts must be initiated to ensure that they are able to achieve the “results that we have not been able to achieve so far,” Ms Khar told PTI on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit here.
While asserting that solutions to all the issues must be found through dialogue, she said both sides have to bridge the trust deficit so that on the negotiating table “we don’t end up all the time restating the stated position.”
“We have done it far too long. I feel that Pakistan sent a very serious message to its friends in India when it decided to move forward on trade,” she said, adding the intention behind the message was that it was based on mutual interest.
“More importantly ... we meant business when we said that we want to move forward in a different way that we were going to try and trade on a new pathway,” Ms Khar said.
“I feel that there is a strong commitment from both the political leadership to do so. It has been my strong desire that we are able to solve some of the solvable disputes at least in the near future,” she said replying to a question. “For that in some area, we require flexibility and in other areas we just require to hold on or honour the commitments that we had made to each other. That will give a good message to our people,” Ms Khar said.