 program here at USIP. And this particular panel is personally important and interesting for me, because in our program, we've looked at India, Pakistan for a while. And of course, all of us know that this is sort of the relationship in the region that has defined and caused a lot of conflict and turbulence over the years. The past 10 years have been consumed, at least in this town talking about Afghanistan and Pakistan. But very quickly, we realize that every time we try and move away from India, Pakistan, somehow we come back to it. Today, we've got a very illustrious panel here with us. And we're fortunate to have the three speakers that you see on the stage. I'll introduce them briefly, and then have them speak before opening it up for question and answers. But let me just frame this by saying that you'll have very different presentations today on the panel. We will be talking about the prospects, or the potential, or the possibility of a special economic zone on the India-Pakistan border as a way to move their relationship forward. And then I suspect you'll be talking about a fair bit of negativity based on the occurrences around the line of control over the past two or three months, and the tone and tenor of the India-Pakistan relationship as it has changed from being fairly positive over the past six, eight months or a year, and even after the Modi government took over to fairly negative as we see today. And these sort of different perspectives are here for a reason. USIP, our South Asia program, had actually supported a study a year ago to look at the feasibility of a special economic zone between the two sides. There was a fair bit of interest in both capitals about this particular initiative. And that's how good we thought the relationship was, and that's where we thought it was heading. Within a year, I'm forced to now have two panelists who've promised me that they're going to excite you with some reality check, or at least I'm forcing that upon them. So we'll get this diverse perspective on this relationship. Let me very quickly introduce the panelists in the beginning, and then we'll have them speak on the issues that I've just mentioned, and then we'll have a conversation around this. Going first would be Dana Marshall, who serves as the founder and president of a transnational strategy group. He has over three decades of experience in international business, energy, commercial, financial, and foreign policy issues, a long-term US Department of State official before he moved into the private sector. And he is the lead on the special economic zone study that I mentioned, and he'll be talking about that. We've then got Dr. Siddiq Wahid, who comes from JNK in India, currently a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. Before that, the founding vice chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology in JNK and also has taught at University of Jammu. I've known Siddiq for a number of years as somebody deeply committed to peace in Kashmir and working across the line of control between India and Pakistan and with New Delhi on everything that occurs and is important for JNK. And finally, we'll have Sadanand Dume, who's based at the American Enterprise Institute here. Again, somebody I've known for a number of years. He writes very regularly, has a column in the Wall Street Journal, is a well-known name when it comes to affairs on India and US-India relationship. So let me stop here and turn to you, Dana, to take it on. Moe, thank you very much. I must say it's refreshing to have someone that represents sort of the economic side of the house being referred to as the less dismal of the sciences. That's an unusual position for me, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate very much the opportunity to join this expert panel on one of the most significant and continuing challenges as, of course, Moe and all of you are well aware of the challenge of the rift between the two countries. I'm going to leave it to the experts on the panel and, pardon me, in the audience to look at the very broad context about how this rift has sort of happened, how it happened, and how it might be able to be bridged. My focus, as Moe had mentioned, is to consider the use of economic policy instruments, specifically the possibility and benefits of establishing an India-Pakistan cross-border special economic zone, or SEZ, as part of the solution that we're seeking. We will look at how such a zone might be a tool to expand economic and job growth in both countries while creating a new and, we believe, a promising mechanism for commercial and political cooperation. Let's just take a moment on the history of the trade relations between the two countries, and I think it's important in the broader context of what we're talking about here. As I think many of us are aware, the trade relationships between the two countries have closely mirrored political relationships. The ups and downs in the overall relationship, as well as trade flows and persistent trade imbalances go a long way to explaining continued barriers to expanding trade. Following independence, India was Pakistan's largest trading partner, and considerable commerce actually ensued until trade ended after the Indian-Pakistani conflict of 1965. After many years of very low levels of bilateral commerce, at that point, Pakistan reopened formal trade with India in the 80s by introducing a so-called positive list. That is a list of those items that could be traded, which numbered at that point 46. So a very small positive list. The list expanded over time, and a significant increase in the positive list came as recently as 0506. At that time, about 2,000 items were in the positive list before a small negative list was introduced. India, in turn, granted Pakistan most favored nation or MFN status in 1996, and has sought such status from Pakistan ever since. Maybe just a quick aside here, and I'm perhaps guilty of this because I'm a trade type myself, but trade policy people are notoriously tone deaf, I think, when it comes to their nomenclature. Most favored nation, that famous term, does not mean that the country to which you grant it is somehow the country you like best or is your best ally. It simply means that the treatment you provide to imports from that country gets the same import treatment as the treatment you give to the most favored country that you trade with. It's a very nice way of ensuring nondiscrimination. This perhaps misleading nomenclature has led Pakistan to rebrand MFN into the now very familiar acronym NDMA or nondiscriminatory market access. In any case, Pakistani exporters complained that while they enjoy formal MFN status in exports to India, there exist a number of informal or so-called non-tariff barriers to market access. These include allegations of unfair customs classification, arbitrary calculation of import duties, delays in customs clearance, difficulties in settling financial transactions with trade, visa issuance problems, which have reoccurred, I understand, recently very strongly, and other problems. As a result of these trade policies, the net result and the relative comparative advantages of the countries and the openness of each country's consumers to the other country's trade, the result has been stark. While current bilateral trade is about $2.7 billion, that means in both directions, only about $450 million are Pakistani exports to India. Indian exports are almost five times as large to Pakistan. What is more, Indian exports have increased from about $500 million in the 0405 period to $2.3 billion in the 2013-2014 period, nearly a five-fold increase. Pakistani exports going the other way have been bouncing around the $300 to $500 million range for the past eight years or so. So while bilateral trade talks have been in the freezer for the past year or so, recent news reports may indicate some movement, and I'm going to be anxious to hear from colleagues here if there's anything to this. According to Pakistani news reports over the weekend, their Commerce Minister told the Senate, quote, Pakistan may grant NDMA status to India. The new deal will protect our business interests. I think we've heard these sorts of things in the past. We'll see if anything comes from them now. Of course, only time, as we say, will tell if there is follow-through. But it is clear the trade barriers, even in the most favorable political circumstances, are in all probability impossible to remove in the short run. One of the many barriers to enhanced commercial cooperation might be termed, and we call this in our report. And incidentally, our report, for those of you who are interested in plunging into it in more depth, can be found on our firm's website, www.transnationalstrategy, all one big word, dot com, transnationalstrategy.com. The reciprocity trap, where each side insists on parity before being able to move forward. So now getting to the SEC, that's a bit of sort of overall background, the trade picture and kind of where things are in the trade negotiation. It was in response to this current seemingly frozen picture that our firm had suggested to Moid some time ago of a novel approach that might be examined across the two nations, the possibility of establishment of an industrial zone or a special economic zone, which would physically exist on the border at some point. And I'll get to that in a moment. Such cross-border special economic zones, though never examined formally in the India-Pakistan context, are not new at all. In fact, they've been successfully established between countries, both with histories of war and also simply with histories of wanting to expand commerce because of the benefits that an SEC of this kind can offer. They are continuing today to generate real economic and political benefits. What do I mean? Couple of examples before we get to the India-Pakistan very quickly. One example under US-led initiative was the Qualifying Industrial Zone, or QIZ program, in which products manufactured in specially designated regions of Egypt could enter the United States duty-free with a small Israeli component, about 10%, 11% Israeli component. That is an enormous benefit because a lot of what is being produced in these QIZ zones are textile and apparel. And for those of you who are familiar with the US tariff system, those products will rank as the highest dutyable products. So tariff-free entry into the United States for those products is a very valuable benefit. Even during the most tense period of Egypt-Israeli relations during the Morsi period, the QIZ program was going strong, and I would argue was perhaps the only real remaining tie between those two countries. Everybody, from Cairo to the Muslim Brotherhood to the Israeli Prime Minister's office, realized the danger in monkeying around with the program that directly hires over 100,000 Egyptians and with the old rest of the connections that those 100,000 have. Another very quickly example is in the Koreas, the K-Song Industrial Park. I think people may be generally familiar with this. It's a park that is wholly within the DPRK. South Korean firms operating there receive a number of benefits. Over 120 South Korean companies have located there. Over 50,000 North Koreans are employed there. This initiative has been seen as successful enough that there are some interest in third-country companies investing in that K-Song zone. And one Forbes report put it, I think, very well in terms of the foreign policy and implications of this. Quote, they quote K-Song, perhaps the best hope for the Western world to gain a sufficient toehold into the closed society of North Korea. So there are examples of these zones in places that have at least as tense of a situation as we have between the two countries to be discussed this afternoon. So how would such an SCZ work in the India-Pakistan context? We believe it would create a more business-friendly environment in both nations, attracting commerce, economic activity, and lifting job growth. We believe an SCZ, by starting on a small scale, and nobody is anticipating this thing be a full-blown operation. And as you'll see, if you have sufficient interest to actually look at the report, we have a very detailed analysis on how we would start such a thing. It can be a catalyst for broader reforms in both countries. Based on previous international experience, but dependent on how the SCZ would ultimately be regulated and administered. And this is not a one-size-fits-all. It would be up to the two countries to decide how they want to do this. It could be phased. There could be many liberalizations right away. It could be a bit less. You could start with a bit less of a liberalizations. All depends. But several things, we believe, could be tackled effectively by such a zone. One thing, and again, anybody that looks at the India-Pakistan current trade situation understands that a lot of the trade is conducted via transshipment through third countries. Obviously, enormous economic deadweight burden. There's no benefit, maybe, except to the shippers and to people who repackage exports and imports for that. We think that an SCZ would certainly deal with that. We would attract foreign investment by implementing an improved export-import policy between the two countries. We believe it would start moving the countries both for their own benefit. And let me stress that this SCZ is not only something that is going to help the relationship between the two countries, it's going to help each individual country without reference to the other guy. That's a very important point, I think. It'll help to streamline and align regulatory frameworks. We believe that there could be some additional liberalization of currency transactions. And we believe that it can help with expanding the freedom of movement of both workers and executives within the zone. One could imagine, for example, a Pakistani executive or Pakistani workers coming in from the Pakistan side, crossing the fence, working in the Pakistan side, maybe crossing, working for a factory in the Indian side at the end of the day, goes back to the Pakistan side, and exits. You would be able to get the best business executives and workers, along with all of the other economies of scale that can be captured by that zone. But what we think may be the biggest benefit to an initiative of this kind is that it will lead them away from the slow track or even the dead end that we see having occurred recently in commercial negotiations. It's why they believe that trade can only normalize when the countries are able to resolve their tariff and non-tariff barriers. Political issues are inevitably also part of the mix. We believe that consideration of an SEZ initiative can provide a new basis for more satisfying commercial interaction. So how to begin? Maybe just a word about this, and let me stop with this. So as I mentioned, we have proposed a detailed action agenda in our report to create what you might call a pilot SEZ zone, a starter kit that we believe is politically feasible and, very importantly, commercially sound. We don't believe that this thing should be only a political symbol. This is a business thing. This is something that's going to help businesses of both countries. Yes, it will have big political benefits, but it needs to stand on its own politically. And we are very mindful of both of those goals in our report. We suggest certain early mover industries might be particularly interested in going into the zone, specifically automotive, especially auto components, which is an important sector in both countries. Textiles and pharmaceuticals will be attracted to the zone since it could improve comparative advantage for manufacturers currently producing independently on both sides of the border and desiring to export to the other country or to third countries. And that's also an important point, which I'll touch on very briefly as I wrap up. Other promising industries we identified that could benefit from location in an SEZ, sporting goods, machinery and machine tools, surgical and scientific instruments, electrical products. There's also the contentious issue of agricultural products. Pakistan insists that India's comparative advantage, if any, is because India subsidizes certain ag inputs. However, if food processing facilities were put into the zone, then only food products would go across the border, which neither country would oppose because they could still retain their agricultural production, but still benefit from both the political and the economic advantages of the zone. Should firms in these or other industries locate in such a pilot zone, they would have the opportunity to build larger production facilities, better business conditions inside the zone for supply to both countries. We believe that third country investors would also notice such an investment incentive. We know that both countries are dying for inbound investment. Everybody's dying for inbound investment. We believe that this is a way for both Pakistan and India to tell third country investors, hey, there's even more of an incentive for you to come into our country because after all, we're not changing the border. The Pakistan side of the SEZ is Pakistan. It's just that it would benefit from certain liberalized regulations and of course the same with the Indian side. For example, there are many non-Egyptian firms located in the Egyptian QIZ areas, Turkish and other firms, for example, because of the tremendous benefits of location there and the market access it has to the United States. When we looked at various potential sites, we thought that perhaps a location between the two Punjabs might be best for infrastructure reasons. Again, we looked at how to start it. Let me just conclude with one of my favorite expressions that I think is appropriate here. For those of us, and perhaps sometimes in my darker days, I might be included in that who sometimes wonder whether such a day would ever come between the two countries. I recall a story that President Kennedy liked to tell. It was about a French general who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The general was then reported to have replied, in that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you, Dana. The only thing I'll say is that when we were conceiving this and thinking through this idea, it seemed far less futuristic than it does today, such as the tenor of India-Pakistan relations. Siddique. Thank you, Mohi, then. Thank you for inviting me to come and speak today. And thank you very much, Dana. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed listening to you, and I am ever hopeful that something like that does come to the table. Having said that, I must say that a similar idea, if not exactly the same idea, was suggested about a little over a decade ago in a cross-LOC line of control discussion that we had where it was said that maybe a zone of meeting between the two sides of that line of control in Jammu and Kashmir should come and meet there and make it into a temporary sort of economic-free economic zone and sort of thing. And it was, of course, I mean, at that time, it didn't look very good even when it was suggested. Very little attention was paid to it. But since then, we've had almost a precursor to this in something called the cross-LOC trade thing, and I must report to you that it's fallen flat on its face since it was started as a political move by the Congress and the PDP government in Jammu and Kashmir, and both for economic as well as for political reasons that felt so. And in fact, in JNK, the state of JNK in its entirety, we've often suggested that why don't you look at Jammu and Kashmir as a whole as a free economic zone? And it might provide a solution that sort of would be tenable. Having said that, I must say that on the subject of today's discussion about which I am to speak, which is repairing the India-Pakistan rift, I must begin by saying I look at it completely from Jammu and Kashmir, not from Delhi, not from Islamabad, and that is the perspective that I'll be put. And how does it look from Jammu and Kashmir? Very skeptical, and pessimism bordering on cynicism, and although I tend not to try and be. And the reasons for this I think are simple. One is the youthfulness of the two countries, two major countries involved, which is India and Pakistan. I know historians in India have talked about a 5,000 year history and so forth, but we know that India is 65 years old, basically, which was handed over by the British. And I think that this has a telling effect, at least from the point of view of Jammu and Kashmir, it makes us philosophical in our approach, saying that let the two countries mature in their foreign policies and how they look at various aspects of their policies, whether it be foreign, domestic, economic, social, et cetera. I think the other thing that makes me very skeptical of this whole thing is the growing politics of identity in the nationalism of the two countries. I don't really need to speak too much about this. I think Pakistan we all know is seeing very difficult times, and we are completely sort of aware of it from where we stand in South Asia. And I don't know where it's going, but it's an identity that where religion has taken front and center over the last two decades or so or more, in fact. In the case of India, it also seems to have lurched very dramatically towards an identity that is going to be religious in nature. And do you then have in mind some sort of a sort of clash of regional civilizations taking place? What is it? I mean, I don't even want to go there in terms of trying to analyze it and talk about it. But where we come from, that is from Jammu and Kashmir, it looks like that's the drift. And that is then we're looking at two fairly large status quo states adopting positions that are antagonistic, you know. And what does that mean? Antagonistic based on identity deep down, no matter what, how much talk about economics and the importance of economics and so forth may apply to that case. And I think that that also is, as I said, cause for some degree of skepticism. And the third, of course, sort of aspect that informs the skepticism is the nuclearization of India and Pakistan and not just nuclearizing, I don't know. I mean, I think it's the nuclear sort of race has sort of become a very esoteric sort of discourse. And I don't, I mean, all I know is if you blow up, you blow up big, you know, in a situation like that. So, but what we look as cans at in South Asia is the growing arms race between the two and the, you know, sort of military industrial complex that we used to hear about in the 60s and 70s, you know, which is now growing a pace vis-a-vis definitions and so forth. And I'm not even going to get to issues like the, you know, climate change and environmental issues that pertain to both of them, including water and the things. So I think that, you know, that kind of an arms buildup and what it means for vis-a-vis those two countries looking at an unresolved territorial dispute, I think at base, with the addition of, you know, a lot of people being involved in that territory or in those territories is something that I think, you know, is sort of not cause for optimism to put it very mildly. And so therefore, I mean, it is, and with the recently, I mean, the recent things that are happening in Jammu and Kashmir in terms of the politics and so forth, demonstrates I think a certain succumbing to this trend, you know, of allowing the discourse or the debate to range around topics like the three that I've just spoken of. And so therefore, where do we go from here and what do we do? Well, you know, as I said, I mean, I come from Jammu and Kashmir and we're forever trying to put things on the table to say, you know, how is it that we should discuss the, you know, India-Pakistan relations in sort of in the, with the question of Jammu and Kashmir being a dispute that they need to resolve amongst themselves without discounting the people who live in Jammu and Kashmir. And here, I mean, I'm trained as an historian, so I'll have to just sort of revert to that for momentarily even. And that is that, you know, we've noticed a shift between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century. There was what the paradigm was in terms of nation states and in national relations, which was, of course, large, very large political spaces called empires, the Russian, the British, the French, the Qing in China, and so the large political spaces and lots of small little economic spaces and zones that were being defined. And somewhere in the mid to late the second half of the 20th century, that seems to have shifted and the zones have become, from an economic point of view, it's become huge economic spaces. I mean, maybe just one economic space called globalization or whatever it is. And smaller and smaller political spaces, you know. And I think that things like East Timor, Scotland, Quebec, and the debates and the discourses that are going on without prejudice to the nature of the discourses that are going on or the expressions of that discourse that is going on, are sort of some things that you need to look at. And when I say you, I mean, Islamabad and Delhi, need to look at as realities that have come onto the table and, you know, how are we going to keep sort of in tune or in stride with that? And in that vein, perhaps let me put on the table something that is even more futuristic than what has been just suggested. And this is something that I've been talking about for some time, and that is that, you know, take Jammu and Kashmir out of the India-Pakistan paradigm of discussion. And let us put it in something called the Central Asia, South Asia paradigm of discussion. It has some historical validity to it because in many ways, Jammu and Kashmir, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, minus maybe Jammu, but with Gilgit, Baltistan, Ladakh, and Kashmir, if you include all of that, this was a sort of a crucible in many ways, and in many ways a cauldron throughout much of history as to how to, you know, sort of, in terms of defining relations between greater powers and so forth. So if you take it out of that and enlarge the canvas, so to speak, you know, then there may be a possibility that we can look at it honestly as something that is in tune with globalization. That term gets more and more murky as I look into it. And globalization in the sense of that can we not look at Kashmir, the economy of Kashmir being tied to the economy of Kashgar in Xinjiang. And look at it as something that will be inclusive for everybody involved, including, let's say, the People's Republic of China, which is a presence in the area. I mean, as a citizen of Jammu and Kashmir, I look at scans across the border between India and Pakistan and the line of control between us and see that the presence of the People's Republic of China or the PLA in Gilgit and Pakistan with, you know, not with a great degree of comfort either. You know, and so what does it mean to then therefore have an engagement with, you know, several powers whose sort of borders are contiguous in this area that we call Jammu and Kashmir state as a whole or the state of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole. I mean, I may have posited this as being very futuristic, but I must say that I'm not, you know, I don't hold a brief for the Modi government at the moment. But I was something very hopeful was said to me by a friend of mine who happens to be close to individuals within the Modi regime, who said that, listen, you know, the BJP government that you see, because it was just after the Lok Sabha elections, the parliamentary elections, and he said, you know, Siddique, you know, throw out your prejudices and even biases, difficult as those are, that look at it in a different way and that is that the BJP currently is looking at going toe-to-toe with China or against China as something that is important for us in the region in order to, whatever, I mean, politically bring salience to India or whatever it is. And that in that vein, the current BJP government may be even willing to put an arm around Pakistan, you know, and not see it as something, which caused my hopes to go through the roof because I think that that's a very, you know, sort of understandable position to take. And it went even further soaring when Modi invited all the South country heads, including that, heads of government, including that of Pakistan to come to his inauguration as the prime minister. First time, I think anywhere in the world, you know, that this happened. And Nawaz Sharif even came, you know. But immediately after that, the breadth and the scope of a statement like that was belied by the fact that a small event, perhaps pricking egos, completely alienated the two countries again. And when that happens, you will have to only imagine what it looks like from little, small, fairly helpless Jammu and Kashmir state. So with that, I'll stop. Thank you. Thanks, Siddique. Thank you, Mohit. When I came here this afternoon, I was a little bit worried that I was going to be the downer, but thanks to... But I have to say thank you to Dr. Wahid for sharing my burden. That said, I'm not going to be optimistic, but you'll be sort of, that's the bad news. And the good news is that even though I'm also skeptical, at least for the moment, about the trajectory of India-Pakistan relations, I have different reasons to be skeptical, so I won't be repeating your presentation. If you just sort of look at the last few months, or if you look at the time that has elapsed since Dana's report on potential economic cooperation was released, things did look optimistic briefly with the invitation to Navash Sharif and other South Asian leaders to the Modi inauguration and the news that the foreign secretaries of both countries would be speaking. But since August, it's been downhill. The foreign secretary level talks have been canceled. There's been stepped up exchange of fire on the border, harder rhetoric on both sides, both in New Delhi and in Islamabad. So I wanna talk a little bit about what has changed, particularly what has changed in India and how things look from the ground over there. And I guess in a nutshell, what I'm gonna do is dwell upon the political changes and changes in outlook and my read of how this Indian government views Pakistan, Kashmir also, but more broadly Pakistan policy, because I think that really is why the conversation we're having today is quite dramatically different from, say, the conversation we would have had a year ago. Now, the Modi government was elected mostly to fix the economy. So if you tracked his speeches, you would see that over and over the single biggest issue that was raised was the idea of development, growth, jobs, and so on. But that wasn't the only reason it was elected. There's also always, through the same speeches, there was a second theme running, which was not Pakistan centric, but it was the idea that Modi would restore pride in India. And part of that, an example that he would raise over and over, and I heard this myself when I was following his campaign in Uttar Pradesh in the summer, was this example of two Indian soldiers who had been beheaded on the line of control, maybe a year before or something. And he would always bring that example up as an example of the Manmohan Singh government essentially having been weak-need and that he would come and he would restore India's pride. I'm not saying that was the dominant theme in his speech, but it was always there. So there's been this idea embedded into the Modi campaign and into the Modi victory, which is that India was a weak state earlier and India will now be stronger. The emphasis, of course, is on economic development, attracting foreign investment. It's definitely an economics-led foreign policy, but there is a security element to that. On security, I would say that if you had to sort of sum up the Manmohan Singh philosophy, it would be turn the other cheek. If you had to sum up the way the Modi government thinks, it's an eye for an eye. And that, I think, is a significant shift. On economics, I actually agree that there is, there remains potential that the change has not been particularly dramatic, at least on the Indian side. The invitation to Nawaz Sharif, Modi's speech at Sark, all of these sort of speak to the idea that India is open to a deeper trade and commercial relationship with Pakistan. But, however, there is, it is linked to issues such as terrorism, justice for the plotters of the Mumbai attacks and so on, and greater sensitivity to things that were really taken for granted in the past, such as Pakistani talks with hurried leaders in Delhi. So the status quo has changed, but in terms of what would be an ideal outcome in economics, that remains largely the same, I would say. The two other things have changed just briefly. One is the Indian assessment of what's going on in Pakistan. I think after Nawaz Sharif was elected in the summer of 2013, there was a sense that two things would happen, one that he would be much more open to deeper economic engagement with India, and secondly that the Nawaz Sharif election would mean deeper democratization of Pakistan. It was sort of seen broadly as a hopeful moment for the region. I think on both of those scores, Nawaz Sharif is seen as a disappointment and the economy he really hasn't delivered, he hasn't even delivered on the kinds of things people thought he would be very good at, infrastructure and so on, that's languished. And in terms of how Pakistani domestic politics is viewed in India, there's certainly a sense that the army has not lost ground, in fact it has clawed background and is firmly back in the driver's seat. And finally the last part is public opinion. And I would say that India in many ways, I would disagree with Dr. Wai, that I don't think that this is a sort of clash of civilizations kind of thing, but I do think that Indian public opinion is much more hawkish towards Pakistan than it used to be. In the past you basically had much of the country which the north and the west and the south and the east, that people didn't really spend too much time thinking about Pakistan at all. And then in the north you kind of had public opinion divided between one group of people who were scarred by partition and were hostile to Pakistan, but another group of people who had this great sense of nostalgia and warmth towards Pakistan. I would say that since 2008 and with the growth of news, 24 hour news television, that is changing. So you have a kind of suspicion and a kind of hostility towards Pakistan that I for one had not seen earlier. The fact that the Mumbai attacks were traced so clearly to Pakistan, the fact that nothing really has happened, nothing has really moved in terms of bringing the people responsible for that to justice has kind of colored the mood in India and I think that that is something that's a long-term trend. I haven't seen any reliable opinion polling on this, but I do think it's a long-term trend that affects how Indian politicians going forward are going to deal with the country. I'll speak a little bit about the Kashmir election and the reason I didn't, I sort of started with the Indian election, the national election in May, rather than the Kashmir election, which was just held recently, is that I think what's driving Indian policy is the election of Modi and not what's happening in Kashmir. Secondly, what's happening in Kashmir with the election, I'd say that we don't know how this is going to end up influencing the BJP outlook. If you're optimistic, you can say that the fact that the BJP is likely to form a coalition government with the PDP would necessarily mean that it has to soften its stance on certain Kashmir related issues. I, for instance, in any case, don't think that Article 370 or Scrapping Article 370, which has been, you know, which grants special autonomy to Kashmir, which has always been one of the core BJP issues that set it apart from other parties. In any case, I don't think that was going to be on the front burner, regardless of the outcome of the Kashmir election. But the fact that now the BJP is looking to form a government with the PDP, which is philosophically very different from it, makes that even less likely to be a major issue. So that's sort of optimistic part in terms of how the Kashmir election plays into national politics. But on the other hand, what we've also seen in the state election is very sharp polarization between Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP is the second largest party in Jammu and Kashmir, but it is almost all its seats, if not all its seats, are from Jammu. So that means that it is, there is no party in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly that's really kind of appealing, trying to appeal or trying to build bridges between both the sections. The two major sections of the state. So what this means, just to quickly sum up, I'd say we have, there's going to be a, there is a new normal in terms of how India sees Pakistan. It's still willing to pursue a version of the so-called Gujarat doctrine, which would be, which is, you know, India should strive to be, because it's the bigger country, which should strive to be more generous. This government, in my estimation, will still pursue that with the smaller countries in the neighborhood, with Sri Lanka, with Bangladesh, with Nepal, but not with Pakistan. I think with Pakistan, there is definitely a sense that the previous government was not strong enough and that now it's time to, to, for a correction. This lowers the odds of a sort of, you know, talks restarting anytime soon. It also increases the risk of escalation, but I don't think the goal over here is escalation. It's very clear that the Modi government is focused first and foremost on the economy, on attracting investment and so on. So the last thing it needs is any kind of serious escalation with Pakistan. However, there seems to be a calculation that there is space quite short of formal, of warfare for taking a tougher stand, including on the border with Pakistan than the previous government took. I'd say in terms of the way forward, coming back to Dana's excellent presentation, I think the way forward really does lie in economic cooperation. I think that if there was a, if Pakistan were to move forward on proposals to, so for example, the MFN status, which has now been about 20 years in the coming, if that were to happen, if there was sort of room for serious energization of the India-Bakistan commercial and trade relationship, I do think Delhi would be receptive because that fits in entirely with their own set of priorities. But the question really is how realistic it is to expect that to happen in a broader climate that is quite negative between the two countries. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you to all the panelists. Before we open up, I wanna see if any of you want to react to anything you've heard on the panel. At the risk of continuing the negativity. I just want to say that I appreciate some of the points that Mr. Dume made and I would go, but there are a few things that I think need to be examined a little more carefully. Number one is that Modi being elected on the base of pride in India or proud India. I think I agree with you 100%. But the example that you gave of responding very hard to Pakistan is also, I couldn't agree with you more on that, but it is uneven when the response is only to Pakistan and not, for example, to a country like the People's Republic of China where there is also a border dispute, where I think, acknowledged, but not officially so, a lot more territorial aggression has taken place, incursions, call it incursions or occupation, whatever. In fact, maybe five or six times to the order of what has happened vis-a-vis Pakistan and even, I mean vis-a-vis the LOC and even in the case of Kargil and that area. And so I find that curious and I always like to call that, call daily on that one because I think that it needs to be even-handed when you look at it. Personally, I call it the boarding school syndrome where in boarding school, when the kid below you does something wrong, you hammer the kid. But somebody else who's above you, senior to you, does it, you just say, well, we can talk and we'll come back and we'll come back and negotiate or whatever. And things that I find that, I mean, standing, coming, and as I said, I mean, no apologies. I'm from Jammu and Kashmir. I find that very difficult. The other thing that I wanted to point out was that the same applies vis-a-vis the public opinion hawkishness towards Pakistan is that because now in the media, and I'm talking about Indian national media, when there is a Chinese incursion, not only do they not go to the border, but that is sitting in Delhi or sitting in Leh, which is very far from the border, people will talk about, I mean, people in the media will talk about it and be not hawkish, but say, the generals are saying we can talk about it and everybody else is saying we can talk about it. And that way, I think the media in India has suffered great credibility. And I think that these things need to be put in perspective. Well, I actually think that there are strong parallels between how this government views China and Pakistan. And I don't think that, I think that, broadly speaking, their approach is the same. You saw a pretty robust pushback when Xi Jinping was in India and you had these incursions at the same time. You have seen an overt reaching out to Japan and the famous bear hug with Shinzo Abe. You've seen the, when during the Obama visit, you've seen India explicitly talk about the Indian Ocean region and the South China Sea. And so I don't think that this is a case of being tough on the border with Pakistan and rolling over with China. I'd say that this is a case of a government that is being tough on both borders. I'm certainly no expert on Jammu and Kashmir. I'm glad we have colleagues that are. Nor do I think I'm naive, but I do think that what this, the initiative that we were examining, what that does is it gives the two countries a fresh start and gets them out of this trap of saying we won't move until you move on this and you move on, you won't move on that because this is something that will immediately benefit both countries. And it seems to me that when you're dealing with an issue or an initiative which has united North and South Korea, Egypt and Israel and other places which are post-conflict situations and many other places which are not, that there is something to be, that there is some value to looking at that as a way to bridge the, maybe to help to shape public opinion a bit. Just one small example of that very quickly. I remember a story of a former American ambassador to Oman. The United States and Oman have a free trade area agreement which is probably the most deep economic integration that two countries can have. And before that was negotiated. There was a visit by Omani trade union people to Washington just to, I think none of that had been here before just to talk to businesses and government and what is an FTA, et cetera. And the ambassador told me a story about one particular big leader in the labor movement who was, he was sort of neutral to negative on the United States. They put him up on a hotel up on Wisconsin Avenue and one Saturday morning he walked down to the gap store and kind of looking through the clothes over there and he saw a lot of them were made in Oman. All of a sudden he became almost like an ambassador for better relations with the United States and for the FTA. I do think that there is value in commercial connections helping to shape politics and public opinion. Yes, I'm not naive. Clearly you can't work if there's a war and I don't know what you would call what's happening across the line of control but I hope at least that that is not going to stop progress and nor did I hear from the colleagues that it would necessarily, thank you. Thank you, that's a very valuable addition. So we'll open up the floor for questions. We have mics so just wait for the mic to come to you because we're also webcasting this event. Introduce yourself and please keep your question or comment short. So why don't we start here? My name is Juliet Ward. I'd like to just follow on to it for what you said. There's no doubt that there's no love lost between North and South Korea and between Egypt and Israel. They've got something going. I don't know whether how it affects the rest of the population. However, for a certain number of people they have a salary and they're working and that means a lot to them and their community. And we haven't really touched on that with all of this pessimism from the other two colleagues. Okay, so I'm wondering if we can talk about that. What does that mean when you have a trade agreement and you have a certain number of people of the population working? That must mean something, not changing the world but at least, I don't know. You tell me what it does. Let's take a couple more, please. Is there anyone at the back? Paul Lundberg. Oftentimes in the past, when Pakistan government attempts to make an improved relationship with India, something militarily happens, like a cargo or the recent line of control. The assumption often is that the military in Pakistan feels that its position is threatened. In your analysis on the design of an economic zone, was there anything specific that was designed into it to enhance the role of military corporations in making money and continuing to improve their role in the country? All right, well, I really appreciate this first question quite a bit because, I mean, I'm not trained as a historian, particularly a political scientist, although in my career I've had to sort of put my toe in both of those waters. But if you look at, if you turn the telescope the other way around, and as you say, you look at the average husband and wife sitting across the equipment at the kitchen table, I mean, it matters a lot that they have a job. I mean, the QIZ initiative in Egypt, as I mentioned, directly hires at least 100,000 Egyptians, multiply that by five or six in terms of immediate family and all the rest, and it becomes a significant part of the economy of the country. And that's why even Morsi and his people dared not touch that. Do you think they wanted to have Israeli components coming in there? When some of them were saying that they should march on Jerusalem, I don't think so. But they realized that this is an important thing and they did not want to screw it up. So I do believe that there is value. I do believe that when a person has a job that it's going to change a lot. And I do believe that there is a solid economic evidence. Again, there's not the time in this session this afternoon but please do look at that paper and there's a tremendous amount of literature on this subject. Military corporate, yes, again, depending on how the countries would design the zone, there's no question that they could be part of that. Third country investors could be part of that. One could imagine, you talk about futuristic ideas. I don't want this ceiling to fall in, but one could imagine third countries providing trade incentives to the products of such a zone to encourage the zone to get established. China and Japan, Russia, they all say that they're friends of one or the other of both of these countries, the United States. What if there were some trade preference for some limited number of products produced in that zone? There's a lot of ideas that are out there. None of them are, I mean, they've not been tried and put to, I was not aware of the history of the Jemukashmir, but frankly, that's not an area that we looked at for the zone. We thought the best place would be between the Punjabs because of existing infrastructure and because the team that we assembled to do this report believed that the provincial slash state level government people would be supportive and as has been noted, the business communities of both countries I think are there. Thank you. I'd like to respond to the sort of analogy made between the two Koreas and Egypt and Palestine. And I feel like a need to defend it given my position. On it. I don't know that much about the two Koreas, but I think the first question that I would say is that as far as Egypt and Israel talking, they've talked and has it gotten us any closer, I don't think so, in the Middle East. Similarly, make no mistake about it. India and Pakistan talk all the time. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Especially if you have an economic plan, if you're in the government and you say, we're going to improve the economy and wow, you've got 100,000 people who are working now, that means a difference to your economic policy. And jobs and... I didn't say they would make you better friends. In fact, I said the opposite. These plans hadn't. Yeah, okay. I understand that and we do hear that, but I must then put my own bias on the table there. And I think that that is that it's nice to talk about everybody getting jobs. It's a very difficult in reality for people to get in jobs when conflict zones themselves, not India and Pakistan. They're not conflict zones, but we in Jammu and Kashmir are a conflict zone. And when the people in the conflict zone, when you talk to them about jobs, it is rejected. Let me give you an example is the last elections. Jammu, the issue was development and Jammu has developed incredibly in the last 20 years during the insurgency in Kashmir, as in the valley. I'm not talking about now within the state as well. And so what was preventing Kashmir also to vote for Modi? The BJP put in a lot of effort, a lot of rhetoric into Kashmir, not a single person was voted in from the BJP on the plank of development, jobs, economics. Not only that, but out of the 24 odd candidates, 23 lost their deposit, which let me translate that into meaning that they didn't get enough votes to have any credibility on the map whatsoever. So people do not, I mean, economics, is very nice to talk about when you have a job, when Siddique Wahid has a job, he can talk about it. But when you're worried about what your future is going to look like, and I'm not gonna dramatize it and say as it was true 10 years ago, whether I'm gonna be able to come back alive into my home or not, jobs take a secondary position and so does economics. I'll respond really quickly to that and then we can move on. On the Israel, Egypt comparison, I mean, I know we've sort of been quite skeptical about peace prospects immediately, but I don't think the relationship between India and Pakistan is similar. What you do have between India and Pakistan, even now, despite things having changed, is a great deal of cultural warmth, not among everybody, but among many people. So I'll give you one quick example of all the most popular soap operas on Indian TV are Pakistani. You know, there's a sort of, there's a kind of people-to-people sameness still that means that if things start working, there's greater room for optimism because there are those links. On the question of the economy, I'll just make one quick observation, which is one of the problems is that both countries or both countries' establishments seem to think that they're doing the other side of favor by normalizing, right? Now it's pretty obvious to us sitting over here that this would be good for both India and for Pakistan. But in India, there's a sense that, well, Pakistan's economy is on the rails, well, they need it more. And in Pakistan, there's a sense that, well, this economy stuff we don't really get, but if we give you this economy stuff, then you've got to solve all our other problems. And so, you know, that's the sort of just one problem. I mean, I would think more like you, but I think coming back to Dr. White's point, there are a lot of people who don't think like you, unfortunately. Talk about Pakistani soap operas. Don't forget Bollywood in Pakistan. Yeah. Richard there in the middle, then we'll come to you. Thank you very much. Could I ask you to apply Afghanistan and the stance each country's taken recently towards, sorry, Richard Lee Smith from the British Embassy. Could I ask you both to look at both countries' relationship with Afghanistan and explain what you think about their approach and what that means to the actual state of Indo-Pak relations because I was conscious how that wasn't really something you drew out in your presentations. I may have hammered this into them but certainly to focus on India-Pakistan. Maybe they did. Thank you for the presentations. My name is Bhavan Bali and I'm from the Indian side of Kashmir. My first question is to Mr. Marshall. Indian-Pakistan are not equal trading partners. Indian economy is much larger and growing like I see it. And do you think that could be one of the challenges to these SECs that if you establish them and how could we overcome that challenge? And my second question is to pessimistic speakers. Ever since we have a new prime minister at the center, what the feedback that I've got is that power is very personality centric in Delhi. Do you see a glimmer of hope that that could be one of the positive signs that we could come up with an out-of-box solution on Kashmir and on India-Pakistan ties? Thank you. Balu, you were supposed to start with you. Do I, yes, I mean, I think, I guess, theoretically, if you have a very powerful leader who has more room to be creative, and it's certainly also true to use the old, you know, Nixon goes to China cliche that in general, a BJP leader in India has more room to negotiate, similarly, I would say, just like a PML and leader would in Pakistan. So yeah, so in theory, yes, but in practice, I haven't seen much evidence to suggest that a breakthrough with Pakistan is very high on Mr. Modi's list of priorities. It was something very important to the previous prime minister. So I think just in terms of, even in terms of where it is on a checklist of things that you want to pursue, it's not as high as it used to be. On the Afghanistan question, you know, it's a cause for concern. I don't think it's the main course. I think that there are other bigger things that are cause for greater concern, but certainly there's a deep worry in New Delhi that we're going to see some kind of repeat of the 1990s. My own view is that that's sort of exaggerated fear because I don't think patterns repeat themselves quite as neatly, but it's not uncommon to come across people who essentially view what's going to happen in Afghanistan after the U.S. drawdown as some kind of repeat, which in a sense, essence means that Pakistani-backed militants are going to reassert control the security situation in the region, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, is going to head south as a result of that. So that's certainly something that's very high up on India's list of concerns and it's something that is raised repeatedly, for instance, in U.S.-India talks. On Afghanistan, as far as I'm concerned, India's stand on Afghanistan is one of the most puzzling to my mind. The standard line in New Delhi is that we have a definite interest in Afghanistan because it is a neighbor. Obviously, someone hasn't looked at the map because there's a piece of real estate between you and Afghanistan, which is called Pakistan. There's a problem here. And I think that that is something that I've, I mean, I thought I was being naive because I don't come from an IR background or security studies background. So it's puzzling and I think it speaks to what national egos can do and that's where we get into tough terrain, is that how do you handle this? How do you handle the fact that they fight over a peak that nobody even knows where it exists called Siachen and spend millions and billions of rupees and dollars trying to keep it or argue over it? How do you do that? And from a people perspective, it's puzzling. And I have always sort of also said somewhat hopelessly that if you look at a map, you will see that Jammu and Kashmir, a but, oh, sorry, another argument that Delhi makes is that we also will get access to Central Asia through Afghanistan. And my argument on that is, again, look at a map and if you see Jammu and Kashmir, it abuts Central Asia. And if you two guys can resolve it, then maybe there's some level of cooperation, economic, political, social, et cetera, historic for that matter, it is. So I don't know, I mean, it speaks again to the fact that the problem between them is a result and which is what makes it, I think, very complex is historical idiosyncrasies, legal ambiguities where Kashmir is concerned and political inequity all rolled into one. And I think that this is something. As far as the personality-centric and whether person-centric and concentration of power in one place can possibly provide us hope, my bias on that is that goes just the opposite way. And it can be good or bad, and so therefore is the risk worth taking because that personality-centric and person-centric is called a dictatorship. When Israel and Egypt started to talk, there was a guy called Anwar Sadat, fairly strong hand there. And then his successor, we don't even have to talk about in terms of the dictatorial power. So I think that it's complicated. And also in the case of India, look at Vajpayee, it was very personality-centric and look where it got us, at the end of the day. Let me respond to that very good question on India is so much bigger than Pakistan, how does this work? That argument is raised from time to time, although honestly it's raised a lot less frequently now because the relative benefit the countries are gonna get through economic integration is really not much a function of the size. If that were the case, Mexico would not have dreamed up the idea of NAFTA. At the time that it was proposed, the Mexican economy was maybe 4% of the US economy. Today, Vietnam would not be dying to get into the trend, specific partnership with the United States. The United States economy is enormous compared to Vietnam. It's a matter of what kinds of products, the specializations there, the kinds of benefits that could be provided. And remember what we're talking about in SCZ, yes it's trade, but it's mainly to try to get benefits from a zone in which investment can occur in a much more liberalized way and across the two countries. You can have enormous synergies that can be grasped through such a plan. So I don't think that's an issue. I do know that sometimes the Pakistani business people in certain sectors do express concern about that, but I don't really think that that is what principally is the problem that explains the trade imbalance. I have a question here and then run back there. Just wait for the microphone. Well, thank you. My name is. Well, my name is Victor Huang and I'm from China. So excuse me if I think this question too naive, but I think that this problem is not just merely worldly. So I think the reason why India and China could act in terms of negotiation is because they could, they have no conflicts in such sections like face or religions so that they could act applies to the classic geopolitical some kind of theories, but the problem in Pakistan and India is somewhat different because they have conflicts in facing religions and that's the conflict in religions that has led the old India cloning to the worst situation that the country can never get to is the separation between the two countries. And I think this kind of conflict still exists today. So I think that the Kashmir problem is never a single conflict between the two nations. It will be treated as a larger combat between the Islamic religion and the other side, the Hindu or other religions. And I think that after the separation of Pakistan and India, the borders of the frontier of those two countries can be treated as another large frontier between the passionate, aggressive Islam and the other side, the same passionate and the same exclusive Hindu. So I think those two countries, as long as the population is religious, can never see those questions very rationally and through mere SEC or government negotiation, this question can never be handled very well. Thank you. I think that's more a comment than a question so we'll go at the back and you'll be the last one. Thank you. My name is Matt Gatz. We've spoken about Afghanistan from the India perspective, but I was wondering if maybe you could talk more about relationships with Afghanistan from the Pakistani perspective. We just heard that the conflict between religions may be a factor, but what if geopolitical conflicts become more important than religious conflicts? We've talked about cultural synergy between Pakistan and India, between Pakistan, oh, hey, we've talked about cultural synergy between Pakistan and India and I was wondering if that could become more important than a religious divide, especially once the United States leaves Afghanistan, could Pakistan become more concerned about their border with Afghanistan than they are about their border with India? Malcolm O- Malcolm O-Dell, I spent about 13 years in both sides of the conflicts over the last 20 or 30 or 40 years. I'm going back over to Pakistan next month, I think for a year or so. And I see it in the context of the US Institute of Peace here that maybe there's a subtext to this conversation that we're not really focused on. There's a certain hopelessness or pessimism at the top level that the leaders are not going to get together, the maybe not even the government's going to look eye to eye. But meanwhile, there's all kinds of informal connections going on and those have proved tremendously successful in all these conflicts elsewhere. For example, you mentioned the Pakistani, what do you call them? Soapoppers, yeah, the Pakistani soapoppers. We all know that every Pakistani and Indian that leaves the country and goes anywhere, immediately become friends wherever they are. If you go to Dubai and you meet an Indian, he'll take you to a Pakistani restaurant and the same thing here in Washington, DC. They're all been friends for years and they don't see the point of it. Trade is a subtext, trade is not a subtext. Trade is a track two diplomacy. And I think track two diplomacy is tremendously powerful and there's another one that I've been familiar with which is the universities of Pakistan and India, the major universities, many of them founded during the years preceding the Green Revolution by US investment, land grant universities. Those universities are all talking to each other and they want to talk more. We designed a program for agriculture in Pakistan that had a component for an Indus Valley initiative that would bring people from both sides, engineers, scientists on water, hydrology, technology, agriculture and energy together. And those people are doing it now if we could encourage more of that kind of track two diplomacy, not just commercial which I think is very powerful, in other arenas, I think it could be extremely effective. Let's come back for the last word to the panel. Well, I think, I don't think I could summarize it better than this last comment of quite frankly. I think that that's absolutely right. I do think that maybe the first comment, the last one in terms of the power of economics to bring these countries together is something that's very important. I'm not naive enough, nobody should be naive and think that that is all that it's going to take, but there is no question that it can be more fully developed. I've had a chance to work with both Indian and Pakistani businessmen and women and I can tell you and everything everyone in this room knows that they are world-class people and can do world-class transactions with the United States and with each other and with third countries. I think sometimes there's a part of me that wants the big politicians to get out of the way and let this track to or others to try to move things forward. I, by nature, am optimistic. I define anybody who's been an IR for her career not to be that way. So I do believe that there is value in this. I'm hoping that one day there will be an opportunity to advance the ball on the SCZ and I look forward to doing so. Thank you. I mean, I couldn't answer to Pakistan's attitude towards Afghanistan, so I would not. But if it's a last word, then I can say from where I stand in Jammu and Kashmir, I hope and pray every day that these guys in Islamabad and in Delhi will get together and talk through economics, through kissing and making up. I don't know what it will take, but the sooner they do that, I think the quicker we will be able to see some light at the end of the tunnel insofar as thus far we are being ignored by both of them and largely by the entire community as well. Thank you. I'm gonna take the last question. I think it's really interesting and it's something I've thought about often. You know, you're right that when Indians and Pakistanis are in third countries they're often the fastest of friends. But my view is actually a little bit different. I think that what you need for progress in the long term maybe is less warmth. You need, you know, what you've had, you know, what this sort of this extreme closeness, it almost, you know, it's like a family feud. And I actually think that what you need in fact is India and Pakistan to kind of have enough people who've just grown completely used to the idea that these are separate entities and they're not threatening each other. Because very often what happens when that Indian and the Pakistani meet is that the Indian response to that warmth is, oh, we're the same. And the Pakistani response is, no, wait a minute, we're not. So it's actually much more complex than what you say. And I think that, you know, what I'm more hopeful that a younger generation that, you know, you'll still have linguistic commonalities, you'll have culinary commonalities, similar tastes, cricket obsession and all of that. But I'm hopeful that a younger generation will be less burdened by this kind of intimacy. So I guess we have a slightly different view there. Thank you, Sadanand, if anybody has any doubts about that 14th next Saturday, please show up at either an Indian or a Pakistani gathering watching the Pakistan India cricket World Cup match. You'll see the true colors, trust me. You can enjoy a drink later after the match, but during the match you will see what they really think. Let me just end by throwing out two or three questions before we thank the panelists. I tend to do this when we end. And sometimes I realize that some of the most basic questions remain unanswered because they're so puzzling. And here, let me just throw out three or four to end. One, quite honestly, I am still at a loss to understand why Pakistan has delayed this MFN, NDMA, whatever, for years and years. Because ultimately it doesn't lose anything by doing it, probably doesn't gain much, but it's just a diplomatic sort of victory, I think, in some ways. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand what is holding Pakistan back, no matter what India says on this. On the other side, also for the life of me, maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't understand why India has canceled talks on a reason which simply is neither here nor there. Because at the end of the day, I think India looks bad. When there's a conversation going on and you cut off talks and the question being asked is why aren't you talking, how are you gonna move forward? So I also can't understand that. Third, my pessimism actually stems from something that Sadanand and Siddique and Dana seem to think is the optimism here, which is that Pakistan for the longest period tied economics to Kashmir and said, I'll trade when Kashmir is resolved. Now from what I'm hearing, it seems that India equally ties economics to terrorism. And so, first you had one, now you have both who say, well, fix some other problem and then I'll talk trade, which to me at least makes me more pessimistic. Fourth, and I think this is probably the most important, how do you tame the media on both sides? You mentioned the 24-7 media. I am finishing up a book and one of my case studies in the book is Mumbai. And I have concluded that Mumbai was not a crisis, but for the media. Both governments responded fairly responsibly to what had happened and were trying to figure out a way to get out of the crisis, except that if you turned on the media, you would actually start thinking about when the first bomb would explode on what side. And so I don't know how you get to that, but I think the public narratives have gone ahead of track one in this relationship for a long time. And finally on Afghanistan, it always amuses me, but as much as I look at this, both Pakistan and India, I think fundamentally are concerned about the other when they look at Afghanistan at two date. I don't think this has changed. What thankfully has changed is that Afghanistan is not the same as it was 20 years ago. I think there's been tremendous change positive in Afghanistan, which will not allow these two sides to play this as simplistically as before. And ultimately, I think all three understand that if Afghanistan, Pakistan, India are not on the same page, this whole idea of the economic integration of the region and South Asia moving forward is going to be a pipe tree. So let me end there. Please join me in thanking the panelists. I also want to mention before you leave us that on the 18th of February, we are going to have the Pakistani Interior Minister, Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan speak here on the terrorist challenge and what Pakistan is doing in the post-Peshawar space. Thank you very much. And last but not least, I forget, I forgot and I will be taken to task by my very able program assistant. If I don't remind you to fill out the feedback cards that are on your chair. So for my job security, do it. Thank you.