"India seeks normal trade relations with Pakistan. We would like to promote trade in a manner that people of both countries benefit," Sinha said

WAGAH, India, September 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A delegation of Pakistani lawyers entered India Sunday, September 28, to attend a legal conference, calling for more people-to-people contacts between the two countries despite friction between their governments.

The 25-member delegation will attend the two-day conference in the northern city of Chandigarh, to be inaugurated Monday, September 29, by Indian President Abdul Kalam.

"Advocates of the neighboring countries should be allowed to carry on their legal practices in the each other's courts as they could be instrumental in bringing peace between India and Pakistan," said Arif Chaudhry, vice chairman of the bar council of the eastern Pakistani province Punjab.

"We are here to discuss feelings heart-to-heart with our counterparts in India and we will tell them that the Pakistani masses are keen for a better relationship with Indians," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted him as telling reporters.

"We do not wish to address the contentious issue of Kashmir but rather we will try to promote friendly and cordial relations between the people of Pakistan and India," Chaudhry told AFP earlier in Pakistan.

Earlier, Chaudhry told a news conference that the delegation to India should be taken as an encouraging initiative towards promoting friendship between the two neighbors, according to Pakistani daily Dawn.

"Being ambassadors of Pakistan, we would defend our country's honor and dignity and would not issue any statement regarding the contentious issues. We want to deliver a massage of love and tolerance instead of fuelling hatred and bitterness."

The Pakistani delegation's visit comes at the invitation of the High Court Bar Association of Haryana state, whose capital is Chandigarh.

The lawyers entered the country from Wagah, the only border crossing between India and Pakistan.

They will travel on to New Delhi and the Taj Mahal city of Agra during their week-long visit.

The delegation would return home on October 3.

The visit comes after a delegation of Indian sitting and retired judges cancelled their trip to Pakistan earlier this month over visa troubles.

Businessmen Talk Trade

Two weeks ago, Indian and Pakistani entrepreneurs began talks to forge new business links and expand meager existing trade ties.

While the businessmen talked about taking "small measured steps" to enhance trade, Pakistan's high commissioner (ambassador) to India Aziz Ahmed Khan urged a resolution to the five-decade old Kashmir dispute which, he said, would generate the atmosphere needed for businesses to flourish, AFP reported Sunday, September 14.

"Trade and economic cooperation flourish in an atmosphere of peace and amity," Khan told a gathering of Indian and Pakistani businessmen who had gathered to launch the India-Pakistan CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) Business Forum in New Delhi.

The first casualty in an atmosphere of "deep distrust and acrimony" was economics, Khan said, adding "this is manifest in the South Asian context" in the non-resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

The envoy said peace initiatives launched by New Delhi and Islamabad in April "had generated enthusiasm at the popular level ... but after five months, these hopes remain unrealized," urging the need for quickly holding "a composite ... and result oriented dialogue."

On his part, Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha urged Pakistan not to allow differences on Kashmir to hinder business.

"We in India and Pakistan have allowed our differences to overwhelm our commonalities so far. We have failed to provide adequate space for our natural complementarities to assert themselves," Sinha said.

He put official bilateral trade between 200 and 250 million dollars.

"In fact, estimates of actual trade, taking into account trade through third countries, is around two billion dollars," said the minister.

Greater trade would translate into increased investments in communications and infrastructure, besides other spin-offs including increased revenues from taxes, greater employment and higher incomes, he said.

"India seeks normal trade relations with Pakistan. We would like to promote trade in a manner that people of both countries benefit."

Sinha also urged a speedy conclusion of a South Asia free trade arrangement, which has been in the pipeline since December 1997.

He regretted that talks in July to restore air links between the two countries had "not proved productive."

An Indian delegation had traveled to Pakistan to discuss lifting a 20-month suspension on air links imposed by India in the wake of the parliament attack, but they did not reach agreement.

Hopes for peace between the two South Asian nuclear rivals suffered a setback last week after an exchange of rhetoric by their leaders in speeches at the U.N.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee accused Pakistan of using "terrorism" as a "tool of blackmail" in a speech Thursday to the U.N. General Assembly, a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf accused India of violating human rights in the New Delhi-controlled Kashmir.

The Himalayan state of Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India and is claimed in full by both.