ISLAMABAD  -    The peace doctrine of the Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa unveiled last year is bearing the fruits.

A unique concept envisioned by the incumbent Army Chief is based on the strategic realism with key objectives to bringing peace and prosperity not only in Pakistan but to the entire region as well.

On the face of its contours spelt out in the national media the template aims at supporting reforms in all spheres to bring about tangible economic change in the country which is reflected in the national life.

So the guidelines outlined by the Army Chief during an interaction with a select group of senior journalists and TV anchors then envisaged on the one hand a mix of approaches and strategies to encourage national initiatives that help in bringing peace, stability and prosperity.

While on other hand simultaneously try to translate the complex and ingrained governance and economic issues so as to making Pakistan as a proud and peace-loving country to garner peaceful coexistence with the world especially the neighbouring countries.

To help achieve this sober objective, Gen Bajwa since taking charge of Pakistan Army has been making strides mainly focusing on two fronts.

One primary objective it envisages is to improve Pakistan’s foreign relations with the neighbours and near neighbouring countries in addition to the UN, OIC, the USA, European Union, Turkey, Japan and Russia, while other important objective includes establishment of lasting peace by hitting out at core common issues of terrorism and extremism.

For this purpose, General Bajwa has been seeking national and international support for addressing them from their root causes.

Internally, Gen Bajwa greatly helped in bringing peace and stability to Pakistan where more than 70,000 people have been killed in terrorism since it joined the US-led war against terror.

During his speech on September 6, 2017, General Qamar Javed Bajwa had categorically announced that monopoly of use of force rest will State.

Similarly to counter hybrid threats PECA was strengthened and action against hate speech and literature was ensured.

The strategy is focusing on totally wiping out terrorism from Pakistan. It is making sure that no safe havens be spared for the terrorists and extremist forces.  Recently, Pakistan has launched a major crackdown against banned outfits with hundreds of their activists arrested, their assets taken over by the government making it a major milestone against the extremist forces.

Pakistan had followed a two pronged strategy to fight terrorists and terrorism. In Kinetic domain Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in June 2014.

To support this operation 20 points National Action Plan (NAP) was announced. NAP was aimed to counter violent extremism, hate speech, and hate literature and de-weaponization to address the root causes. NAP specifically deals with action against proscribed organisations.

Operation Radd ul Fassad was launched on February 22, 2017 with four cardinals including eliminating residual threat of terrorism, countrywide counter terrorism operation, de-weaponisation and explosive control order management, perusal of NAP are hall mark of Radd ul Fassad.

Objective of kinetic operations were achieved to a large extent which brought down terrorism. Previously due to commitment in Kinetic operations efforts for NAP remained wanting.

On the external front, the template is working quite well when it comes to resetting Pakistan’s bilateral relations with the USA.

Islamabad and Washington are engaged to resetting their relations soared since the US forces violated Pakistan’s sovereignty and attacked OBL compound in Abbottabad.

Pakistan’s efforts to help facilitate talks between the US and Afghan Taliban has been widely acknowledged and lauded.

Also, Pakistan has been actively pursuing its peace policy not only with western neighbours including Afghanistan and Iran but also with India.

Pakistan remains engaged with Afghanistan and Iran seeking their cooperation to do away with the role of non-state actors in the region largely by denying them to use their respective territories against each other.

This is evident from the fact that Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa during his visit to Afghanistan in an interaction with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had asked him to agree on a common objective to help stop the non-state actors from using soils of Afghanistan and Pakistan against each other.

The ongoing border fencing of Pak Afghan border by Pakistan is the hallmark achievement of the Doctrine which will eventually benefit both the neighbours to forestall threat of cross border attacks.

Once fencing of Pak-Afghan border is completed, Pakistan and Iran are likely to follow the suit to secure their respective borders from terrorists.

But, unfortunately, India under the junta of Prime Minister Naredra Modi has not been forthcoming. Instead New Delhi has been rejecting Pakistan’s peace overture towards normalising bilateral relations between the two nuclear armed South Asian neighbours.

Despite these efforts by Pakistan, India continues with its policy of confrontation and internally promoting a culture of hate through BJP sponsored ideology of Hindutva.

India started sabre rattling last month following the Pulwama attack, which claimed death of more than 40 Indian soldiers in the occupied Kashmir. Instead of investigating the incident, New Delhi instantly blamed Pakistan.

New Delhi deliberately flared up situation on its borders with Pakistan particularly the Line of Control (LoC) by bringing more soldiers to the Occupied Kashmir.

Consequently, Indian Air Force warplanes intruded into Pakistan but were forced by the Pakistan Air Force to leave Pakistani airspace.

On their way back, the Indian warplanes left their payload in a hilly area about 30 kilometres away from the international border. Indian authorities created hue and cry on hitting some terrorist hide outs and killing more than 250 people, which later turned out to be another lie by the BJP government. But very next day two Indian warplanes were shot down by Pakistan and a pilot of one of the plane was taken into custody.

The build-up to a possible conflict had caused grave concern the world over, amid a successful retaliatory strike by Pakistan and claims by the Prime Minister Imran Khan-led setup that the Modi administration had planned more raids into Pakistani territory.

Many believed that such raids could have triggered a full-blown war of unprecedented consequences between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Sensing the gravity of the heightened tension, many countries of the world including China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA and Qatar cautioned for immediate restraint.

However the US, Saudi Arabia and China played key role in the immediate de-escalation of tension between Pakistan and India.

Since then there has been a relative calm as high commissioners of the two nuclear armed neighbours have resumed their respective offices and New Delhi and Islamabad are scheduled to resume talks over the much-awaited opening of the Kartarpur Corridor.

A Pakistani delegation will travel to India for talks on March 14, and the Indians will reciprocate on March 28.

If this goes well as per plans, it would be a remarkable turnaround considering warmongering by Prime Minister Narendra Modi following his recent aerial misadventure against Pakistan.

The situation is, indeed, very precarious and will continue to be unless India adopts a more flexible approach and engages in talks. But Prime Minister Modi and his ruling party BJP are continuing with the border violations and by deliberate targeting of the civil population across the Line of Control (LoC).

This many believed is largely due to Pakistan’s political and diplomatic support to the just cause of Kashmiris in the Indian occupied Kashmir and partly being used by India as a tactical move to keep pressure on Pakistan.

Indian security forces are busy in the occupied Kashmir in writing a new history of repression and massive human rights violations against Kashmiris which fortunately have been exposed to the international community and its policy of repression is also making the Kashmiris as suicide bombers.

However, the Pakistan Armed Forces remain on alert and made it clear that Pakistan would befittingly respond to any Indian misadventure come what may, and fortunately the political leadership as well as the entire Pakistani nation is solidly standing along the armed forces of Pakistan in the defense of the motherland.

As Pakistan has been successful in turning the tide against terrorist and extremist forces in the after a terrible war and has re-established peace across the country, let there be no waste of these gains. It is about time the international community stands up and stops India from war mongering and help resolve the Kashmir conflict.