ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said that Asia-Pacific, including the Indian Ocean, should become a Zone of Peace, an area of expanding cooperation and prosperity through strict adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and the Bandung Principles of peaceful coexistence. In his virtual address at Nikkei’s 26th conference on ‘Future of Asia – Shaping the post-Covid era: Asia’s role in global recovery,’ he said that Pakistan looked towards serving as a geo-economic hub connecting the economies of Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and beyond. He said it was vital to avoid great-power rivalry and tensions in Asia-Pacific as there was ample room in Asia for economic, trade and investment participation of all states. “Asia must not become theatre of tensions induced from without or within. The differences and disputes in Asia require Asian solutions on the basis of Asian values and interests,” he said. However, Imran Khan pointed that regional potential could not be fully unleashed until the countries did not resolve their outstanding conflicts and disputes. On Afghanistan, he said as foreign forces withdrew from the country, it was imperative to redouble efforts to promote peace process between the Afghan parties. He said that Pakistan hopes that the violence will be sharply reduced and the Afghan parties will engage constructively to secure an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement. He said that Pakistan desired peaceful and cooperative relations with all its neighbours, including India. But India must stop human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and revisit the unilateral measures it took on August 5, 2019, he said. For Asia to gain recovery from post-pandemic health and economic crises, he said that a collective action of countries was necessary including expanding vaccine’s supply and keep economies open. “We in Asia, and elsewhere, must keep economies open, revive disrupted supply chains, and resist protectionist temptations to ensure rapid recovery,” he said. Unless fully contained, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the pandemic could create social chaos and threaten peace and security in Asia and elsewhere in the world. “No one will be safe unfortunately until everyone is safe… The vaccine’s supply and distribution must be immediately expanded, patent rights waived, production ramped up, including in the developing world and the COVAX facility fully extended and funded,” he said. He said that coronavirus had created the worst global health, economic and social crisis in the past 100 years and said it was essential to provide low-income countries a fiscal space and liquidity to respond to the impact of the pandemic, revive economic growth and preserve social stability. He recalled his earlier proposal of a five-point agenda for debt relief, SDR creation and re-allocation, larger concessional finance, fulfillment of climate finance commitments, and an end to illicit financial flows from developing countries. He welcomed the extension of the G-20’s debt suspension initiative, the agreement to create $650 billion in new SDRs, expand IDA funding and also expand the emergency support programmes for the multilateral development banks. The recommendations of the FACTI Panel on illicit financial flows must also be implemented, he said. If Asian and other countries were to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, he said that they needed to invest massively in sustainable infrastructure – energy, transportation, housing, agriculture and industry. SUSTAINABLE GROWTH The prime minister stressed that less-developed countries must be helped to prepare a pipeline of sustainable infrastructure projects. To attract private investment, he said that such projects would need to be de-risked through blended finance and investment guarantees and incentives. He emphasized on mobilizing science and technology to accelerate sustainable growth through targeted research on innovations and applications required to advance the sustainable development and environmental goals. He said rapid digitalization of economies was essential to ensure dynamic growth and mentioned the digital divide between advanced economies where with 87 percent of people were online compared with only 19 percent having internet access in poorest countries. He suggested expanded investment in digital hardware and software to bridge the gap of technology. Linking dynamic economic growth in Asia with greater physical connectivity, he said that China’s Belt Road Initiative provided an important pathway to such regional integration across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. He welcomed proposals from Japan and others to support and finance quality infrastructure in Asia and elsewhere. The prime minister said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the Belt Road Initiative, had generated economic activity and employment besides enhancing bilateral and regional trade. He highlighted that it was essential that an enabling environment was created for dialogue to peacefully resolve the Jammu Kashmir issue in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Imran Khan said the situation in Palestine remained a matter of deep concern for everyone and urged the international community to take urgent actions to stop the Israeli attacks against Palestinians, prevent desecration of holy places especially Al-Aqsa Mosque and facilitate a just and lasting solution in line with the relevant UN resolutions.