THIS is apropos of the letter ‘UNSC membership: an opportunity for Pakistan’ (Nov 11) by Hassan Shahjehan on Pakistan’s winning non-permanent UN Security Council seat.

It proves that Pakistan is far from being isolated as being portrayed by certain media groups. Many of its innocent civilians have lost their lives in the past 10 years and the worst thing is the war is far from over.

The fundamental mistake that Pakistan has made is looking at world problems through the prism of religion. Kashmir and Palestine are very emotional issues and are mentioned in every forum. But these are not the only regions affected by human rights violations. A close look at other countries in the region will reveal a much more serious human suffering.

People of Kashmir cannot vote to decide whether it should join Pakistan or India unless the Kashmiri pandits, who are considered by Hindus as original inhabitants of the region, are allowed to settle in the valley and participate in the vote. Can the present generation of Kashmir leaders allow this to happen? The point of view of pandits needs a sincere hearing.

An independent Kashmir state will be just another non-secular Islamic state which will not be ideal and not acceptable to India. But as a democratic nation, India is duty bound to investigate the mass graves discovered in Kashmir. The Indian government should take this as a priority and take action against the perpetrators of these crimes. As Mr Shahjehan has mentioned, it is a great opportunity for Pakistan only if it avoids being selective in raising issues, otherwise the UN will continue to be an organisation for opportunism and will further lose its relevance.

Pakistan should also look to regain its moral high ground as there is a wide suspicion around the world that it is supporting Kashmir-focused militant outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, etc. The events of the past few years have not helped its image.

But it is heartening that India has also voted in favour. Only good relationships between these two nations can bring peace and prosperity to this beleaguered region. We cannot afford the next generation to carry on this enmity as both nations have already paid a heavy price in the past 65 years without making any significant positive impact in the modern period.

KARTHIK Pune, India

Rethinking  policy THIS is apropos of Toqeer Hussain’s article ‘Rethinking our foreign policy’ (Sept 27). There is no doubt that Pakistan needs to rethink its foreign policy which should be based on an inward approach in economic and geostrategic dimensions driven by rationality and self-respect.

It is time we delineated our strengths and diagnosed our weaknesses. For this, we need to put our own house in order which means paying greater attention to the stability and clearer role of institutions. This is the only way for condemning the unpopular role of our civil-military power centres.

All foreign policy objectives should largely be based on our domestic economic and geostrategic indicators. This envisages giving respect to public opinion as well.

The writer has correctly indicated the cold war era’s economic and political preferences that we opted for when the world was striving hard to find out new horizons in economic spheres.

The archaic methods of formulating and conducting our foreign policy should be discarded once and for all which have served nothing to the masses except for a blatant threat to human and traditional security.

Particularly for the last two decades, our foreign policy remained vulnerable to the uneven and irrational alliances and regional instability. This has hampered the overall economic and political growth.

For a country that occupies a strategic location and which can play a major role as a regional trading, energy, logistics, transshipment and manufacturing hub, there is no reason for it to experience double-digit inflation and an acute energy shortage.

It should, therefore, be realised that to survive in a capitalist world, we have to exploit and command our own resources. Finding our way to economic clubs as a foreign policy tool will in itself be a great deterrent factor as far as both regional and internal security is concerned.

Be it China or any other nation, Pakistan has to be wise in negotiating its geoeconomic interests to save all future generations from the collateral damage evolving out of an irrational and imbalanced foreign policy approach.

AMEER TAIMOOR BRAAL Sargodha