Describing as 'solvable' the Kashmir issue with India, Pakistan People's Party chief Asif Ali Zardari has said the two countries should not allow slow progress on it to be an obstacle to work in other cooperative matters.
'We must make viable peace. This (Kashmir) is a solvable problem that must not take further lives,' Zardari said in a 'special vision statement' read out at a conference organised by Tehelka magazine in London on Friday.
Pending a final settlement, 'we agree with the statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh supporting an autonomous Kashmir running much of its own affairs', Zardari said.
'A Commission can be established between the two countries and the leaders of Kashmir themselves to work out what should be done in foreign and defence affairs,' he said.
The PPP chairman said that while working out the solution to Kashmir, 'we should not allow slow progress on it to be an obstacle to work in other cooperative matters'.
'There are several ways to strengthen our relations. One important way is through economic integration and trade, business cooperation, media exchanges, transportation links between our two countries, the energy requirements of our economies, sports and entertainment events, cooperation in the Information Technologies, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, in medicine, education and agriculture,' Zardari said.
He said the PPP believed that Indo-Pak relations could and should be creatively rediscovered.