PRESIDENT Dr Arif Alvi Thursday conferred the country’s highest civil award Nishan-e-Pakistan on the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Šefik Džaferovic at a special investiture ceremony. While reading out the citations, Secretary Cabinet Division Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera said that Šefik Džaferovic had made a great contribution to strengthen the Pak-Bosnian relations. He said due to his efforts, the Bosnian Parliament also issued a statement to denounce the human rights abuses by Indian forces in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
It is a well-deserved honour for a leader who worked with commitment to strengthen Pak-Bosnia relations in different spheres of life. The friendship between the two countries is founded on solid ground and sincerity as Pakistan extended fullest possible support to Bosnia during 1992-95 and played a pivotal role in efforts aimed at restoration of peace and rehabilitation of the war-torn country. Despite geographical distances, Pakistan made generous offers to accept refugees from Bosnia and, in fact, 380 of them did arrive in the country, making Pakistan the third Islamic country after Turkey and Jordan to have accommodated people in distress. Such expressions of sympathy and solidarity were not one-sided as people of Bosnia also stood firmly with Pakistan during the devastating earthquake of 2005 when they provided funds for construction of educational and health facilities in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. People of Pakistan are also grateful to leadership and people of Bosnia for their expression of support on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and raising their voice in support of oppressed people of Occupied Kashmir, where worst types of human rights violations are being committed by Indian occupation forces.
Mr Džaferoviæ touched hearts of people of Pakistan and Kashmiris when he spoke firmly on the issue of Kashmir during his discussions with Pakistani leadership. He stated that stance of Bosnia and Herzegovina was very clear: “human rights of all the citizens of Kashmir must be respected, human rights must be the priority, the peaceful resolution must be found and it is very important to act in line with the conventions regarding the human rights, specifically, the United Nations human rights conventions and that is where the solution must lie in this case.” Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina called for a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute in the light of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and this forthright stand is important as India has illegally annexed the occupied territory. It is satisfying that the two countries have identical views on a host of regional and global issues and have vowed to work together to counter the trend of Islamophobia especially in the backdrop of publication of blasphemous caricature in some of the Western countries.
The visit of Mr. Džaferoviæ has been fruitful as leadership of the two countries agreed to further deepen mutual cooperation in all fields, especially in the economic, trade and investment, science and technology, defence industry, educational and cultural arenas. The two countries already have closer defence cooperation and they have signed two more accords on scientific cooperation and readmission agreement. Pakistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina enjoy excellent political ties and there is enormous goodwill on both sides but unfortunately their bilateral trade is negligible at 4.5 million Euros, as pointed out by Prime Minister Imran Khan as well. Similar sentiments were also expressed by the Bosnian leader who remarked that military industry, agriculture, economy and diplomatic academy in Pakistan were only some of the opportunities that both countries touched upon but the list of the areas where cooperation can be increased and expanded in future was long. The commitment is there and hopefully relevant officials and ministries on both sides would interact frequently to give practical shape to the aspirations of even closer cooperation in diverse fields.
