Mr. Ali said that both Pakistan and Turkey are located at the cross roads of West Asia and South Asia, which accord them a geo-strategic importance. He said the world super power, USA by virtue of their presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, has gained the status of their neighbors. The spillover of Al-Qaeda and Taleban elements in Pakistan’s tribal areas and terrorist activities of PKK from IRAK side is an identical problem, which is aimed to disrupt the peace and process of growth in these two brotherly countries. Indian forced occupation of Kashmir land and Greece adventurism in Cyprus are two burning issue with which these two countries are confronted and need the world attention for their early resolution.

The leader of Pakistan delegation Air Commodore Mujjadid and Brig. Mushtaq briefed the Turkish intellectuals about Pakistan’s geo-strategic location, fight against terrorism, and relations with Afghanistan and India, and US-Iran stand off. Pakistan’s intellectuals dilated at length about the war which Pakistan was fighting against terrorism and extremism and its cooperation with United Nations. It was disclosed that Pakistan was the signatory to 10 UN conventions on terrorism out of 13, which clearly indicates its urge and determination to eliminate terrorism and extremism. At the same time, they said that international community needs to identify, eliminate and address the factors leading to terrorism. Participants of both the countries agreed that the source of Afghan problem lies with in Afghanistan which needs to be resolved through holistic approach.

On Pak-India relations the Pakistan side underlined President Pervez Musharraf’s initiatives for “out of box” solution on US-Iran’s nuclear stand off, Pakistan has always supported the solution through dialogues and rejected the idea of use of force in this region. At the same time Pakistan recognizes Iran’s right to peaceful use of nuclear energy and hoped that Iran would abide by its obligation under the NPT.

In the end of joint deliberations, a very meaningful and informative question/answer session was held in which broader consensus prevailed on number of regional and global issues. It was agreed that exchange visits of such like intellectual groups between the two countries was very beneficial and productive.