Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Young parliamentarians of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries have agreed to enhance cooperation in diverse fields including energy, trade, security, and to ease process of visa and travel arrangements.

An understanding to this effect came in a joint statement issued on the conclusion of the first two-day ‘Young Parliamentarians Conference’ in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The conference laid stress on developing mechanisms for strengthening cooperation in climate change, environment, education, tourism, and sports, said a statement.

Promotion of people-to-people interactions, cultural exchanges, and cooperation to address issues of corruption and financial crime was also underlined in the statement.

Earlier, addressing the concluding ceremony, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq said the conference would help to improve Pakistan’s image abroad.

It is up to the parliamentarians to resolve the issues in the battlefield or through dialogue, he said. He stressed the need to give a fair share to women in politics as well as in the inter-parliamentary delegations within the SAARC region. The SAARC countries should allow youth to lead their nations to promote peace, stability and cooperation in the region, he said, adding that Pakistan wants to resolve all outstanding issues with India peacefully through dialogue.

The NA speaker informed the audience that Pakistan had been the biggest victim of terrorism and after a long and hard struggle it was restrained to an appreciable extent.

He condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Quetta, Paris and Brussels. “Terrorists have no religion and no nationality. We have to work together to tackle this issue jointly”, the speaker added.

He termed the youth to be the decisive power and urged them to actively involve themselves in politics. “The youth should hold us accountable wherever we go wrong,” he said. The speaker desired that the foreign delegates should interact with the youth of Pakistan by visiting different universities.

Ayaz Sadiq also invited speakers of all SAARC countries to visit Pakistan to change the negative perception they might have developed about Pakistan.

The convener of the conference, Malik Uzair, presented the conference declaration. He emphasised the need to institutionalise the SAARC Young Parliamentarians’ Forum.

He called for making the SAARC Young Parliamentarians’ Forum as a representative body of parliamentarians aged up to 45 years under the auspices of the SAARC Secretariat. He said this would help to make joint efforts through representatives, legislative and oversight roles at respective parliaments to persuade their governments in focusing on youth populations for the promotion of peace, harmony and development. “It will also set the foundation of strong inter-parliamentary linkages across South Asia,” he underlined.

It will set up a network that can develop into a continued platform to nurture regional interaction, support democratic norms and build a coalition for sustained dialogue and peaceful cooperation, he added.

He said that there is a need to adopt the SAARC youth charter to strengthen the voice of youth of the region, and added that there was also a need to strengthen mechanisms for cooperation and institutionalisation of the SAARC efforts for climate change, environment, energy and trade facilitation among member states.

He said promotion of inter-SAARC education, sports, tourism and cultural exchanges; including arranging sports fixtures among teams of SAARC parliamentarians could promote people-to-people contact for peace, harmony and development of the SAARC region.

The enhancement of cooperation will address issues of corruption, transparency and financial crime in the SAARC region, he added.

Heads of delegates of the SAARC countries ensured full commitment to enforce their respective part of the declaration and desired that the same should not be reduced to the paper but also implemented in letter and spirit for increased cooperation, coordination and dialogue between the SAARC countries.

SAARC Secretary General Arjun Bahadur Thapa, EU delegation acting head of Pakistan Stefano Gatto, Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani, Conference convener Malik Muhammad Uzair Khan and other parliamentarians including Shaza Fatima Khawja, Nafeesa Shah, Ayesha Raza Farooq, Syed Ali Raza Abidi and Marriyum Aurangzeb were also present.