MUZAFFARABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that Pakistan wants peace in the region; it does not want confrontation with India. He reiterated that the Kashmir issue should be sorted out through dialogue. “It is not possible that one part of the region becomes prosperous and the other part remains in trouble. Kashmir is part of South Asia. Its peaceful solution is indispensable. History is once again calling the leadership of Pakistan and India. We want peace in the region. We are prepared to do each and every thing to this effect. We don’t want confrontation with India. Kashmir issue be resolved through talks,” he said while addressing the joint sitting of the AJK Legislative Assembly and Kashmir Council in Muzaffarabad on Friday. Sharif said the Kashmir issue was a test of the Pakistani and Indian leadership. He said that Pakistan and India couldn’t prosper without resolving the Kashmir dispute. He showed optimism about the resumption of dialogue between the two countries and said that dialogue was the key to resolution of all bilateral issues. He said that both India and Pakistan would have to think about the well-being of their people. Sharif said it was the matter of UN’s authority and prestige to resolve the Kashmir issue according to its resolutions. He said the UN was answerable to the world for its failure to implement resolutions on Kashmir. AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Sardar Ghulam Sadiq Khan chaired the joint session that was attended by AJK President Sardar Yaqoob Khan, AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, Minister for Kashmir Affairs Chaudhry Barjees Tahir, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid, Adviser to Prime Minister on Political Affairs Dr Asif Kirmani and Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Chairman Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman. Sharif said that South Asia needed a new vision and thinking. He said that Pakistan did try to give a new vision to South Asia for the sake of peace in the region. He said that Pakistan had assured India of its cooperation on all issues, including terrorism. He said that no one could understand peace better than Pakistan, which had been a victim of terrorism for more than one decade now. He said that nobody could deny the Kashmiris their right to self-determination. He said that Kashmir was a permanent part of Pakistan’s national policy and Pakistanis could not ignore it because they had historical, geographical, religious and cultural relations with it. Sharif said that Pakistan and China had initiated a $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which would usher in a new era of prosperity in the region. He said that Pakistan wanted peace in the region. He said that benefits of the CPEC would reach Azad Jammu and Kashmir too. He said that Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be the main beneficiaries of the CPEC. Under the project, he said, a network of roads would be built besides hydropower projects, which would ultimately help overcome the energy crisis in the country. He said that several projects in the AJK were part of the CPEC. He said that work was in progress with the cooperation of China on several electricity projects. He said that there was a lot of improvement in the power supply situation and load shedding would end by 2018. Lauding the Pakistan-China friendship, the prime minister said that $46 billion from China for the CPEC was not a loan; it was an investment and $34 billion were from the private sector. He said the incumbent government led by the PML-N had plans to lay down a railway track from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad and construct an expressway from Muzaffarabad to Mirpur. He said the Murree Expressway would be extended to Muzaffarabad. He said the federal government would provide Rs2.5 billion for construction of a new building of the AJK Legislative Assembly. He announced Rs150 million for development projects in the AJK.