Brussels: Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan said here Thursday the peace process between India and Pakistan is irreversible but stressed that the Kashmir issue would determine the long-term ties between the two countries.

"The peace process between India and Pakistan is irreversible. I don't think we will ever go to the situation where the two armies were facing each other like in December 2001 ," Khan, who heads the Tehreek-e-Insaaf party, told reporters at the European Parliament in Brussels.

There is a realisation in the subcontinent that two nuclear-armed countries cannot afford to have a war, he said according to EuAsiaNews.

"But I do feel eventually that long-term relationship of peace and prosperity in the subcontinent will depend on how the Kashmir issue evolves itself," added Khan.

He was invited by British Member of EP Sajjad Karim, who chairs the European Parliament Friends of Pakistan Group, to speak on the situation in Pakistan.

Khan said in the tribal areas the present government like the Musharraf government was already being perceived as the "puppet of the US".

"The war on terror in our part of the world, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is being lost. There has to be a change of strategy," said Khan calling for dialogue to deal with the militancy in the tribal areas of Pakistan rather than using the army.

 

Source : IANS