LAHORE: The leaders of major political parties, intellectuals and civil society activists on Sunday urged India and Pakistan not to allow terrorists to take the bilateral dialogue hostage to their nefarious designs. Speaking at a seminar titled “Pakistan-India Thaw: Out-of-Box Solutions” under the aegis of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) at a hotel here, the speakers said the dialogue between the two countries should continue without any interruption. Former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), senior journalist and analyst Ahmed Rashid, Prof Dr Mohammad Waseem of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan’s former high commissioner to India Shahid Malik, defence analyst Lt-Gen (Retd) Ghulam Mustafa, civil society activist Abdullah Malik, and SAFMA Secretary General Imtiaz Alam were key speakers at the seminar. Columnist Munnu Bhai, human rights activist Diep Saeeda, renowned journalist Hussain Naqi, students from universities and people from different walks of life were also present on this occasion. Kasuri said that Pakistan-India differences over Kashmir couldn’t be sorted out through force because both countries had nuclear weapons and modern technological armaments. He asked Pakistan and India to sit down to resolve the Kashmir issue. He said: “I think that even religious parties will not object to negotiations between Pakistan and India on Kashmir issue.” He said “we have murdered the history of both countries” and added that the media should play a positive role for resolution of issues between Pakistan and India. He said the high command of the Pakistan Army or the Indian Army did not object to his recently published book titled “Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove”. Mustafa said there was no out-of-box solution for Kashmir and other issues between Pakistan and India and added that a balanced dialogue was the only way forward. He said that internal dynamics of India were too much strong. He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was as dangerous for India as for Pakistan. Ahsan said, “War is not a solution to any problem and we have not achieved our goals by fight wars against India”. He said that wars created problems instead of benefiting the people or giving solutions to problems between the two countries. He said that both countries should give each other benefit of doubt and move on. He said, “We should strengthen our economy in the sectors where India cannot match us such as the leather sector instead of pointing finger at others.” He said, “We did ethnic cleansing in the past.” On the occasion, the participants passed a resolution condemning terrorism in all its forms, including the terrorist attacks on the Bacha Khan University and the Pathankot Airbase. They appreciated Indian and Pakistani governments’ ‘saner response’ to the Pathankot attack and their resolve to cooperate with each other to take the culprits to the task at the earliest. They supported Pakistani government and security forces’ zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism. They showed disappointment with the postponement of foreign secretary-level talks, which were going to give a roadmap for a comprehensive dialogue between Pakistan and India. They called for a meeting between national security advisers of the two countries for early conclusion of a joint investigation into the Pathankot attack. The participants proposed a joint security mechanism so that the two countries could share intelligence, pre-empt terror attacks and fight terrorism together. They said the dialogue between Pakistan and India must be uninterrupted and productive. They said that talks on Kashmir should start from the point where they broke last time. They said that an environment conducive to peace, people-to-people contacts, trade and bilateral cooperation should be created. The participants called upon the two countries to replace paradigms of conflict and animosity with a climate of detente and interdependence in the greater interest of the people of the two countries. They urged Pakistan and India to look for out-of-box solutions to all bilateral problems. They asked the media to promote peace and understanding instead of creating hysteria and promoting blame game between the two countries. In a separate resolution, the participants demanded that Pakistan and Afghanistan must not let terrorists use their territories and they should not make any distinction between good and bad terrorists. They said that both countries must evolve an institutional arrangement for joint management of the border and coordinated operations against terrorists. They said that Islamabad and Kabul should avoid blame game and work through a four-nation forum for reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan.