President Asif Zardari and Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who held formal talks in Ankara on Wednesday, agreed to work together for a common cause of peace and stability in the region. And as Afghanistan, a key country in it, is afflicted with foreign occupation that instead of putting an end to the curse of terrorism is providing it strength, they felt a strong urge to do all they could, support any promising initiative, to make its return to peace possible. Once the country sees the back of militancy, the stay of foreign forces and resistance would lose their justification. Although both the Presidents, while addressing a joint press conference, did not confirm that Turkey would be willing to house a Taliban office on its soil, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglus remark, if there is such a demand (to host a Taliban office), Turkey will help with full capacity, clinches the issue. He has talked about it with former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who leads a peace council set up by the Afghan government to work towards a political solution. Mr Davutoglu added, We discussed in detail their request to (establish) such an effort and said we are ready to do everything possible for this process. However the Turkish Foreign Office maintains that has been no official application for opening the Taliban office. Mr Zardari, on his part, said that Pakistan believes in a peaceful transition and dialogueWe will be facilitators to any format that leads to peaceWhatever needs to be done Pakistan will be playing a positive role and hoping to facilitate the transition and dialogue. We believe that the ideal solution for the troubles of Afghanistan lies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey devising a suitable course of action based on help and cooperation among themselves and a total absence of individual interests and rivalries. Foreign intrusions only tend to serve the vested interests of the intruders and invariably do harm to the affected country, leaving behind a trail of suffering. Time has come for the Muslim Ummah to appreciate this basic lesson of history. On the bilateral front, the two leaders talked of operationalising the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul freight train, whose existing track needed upgradation, to promote commercial connectivity between these countries and for Pakistan to get easier access to the European market. Several other economic initiatives like Special Economic Zones in Pakistan came under discussion and it was agreed to make efforts to achieve the target of $2 billion dollar worth of bilateral trade. One hopes that our leadership realises that should the political will to forge stronger bilateral ties exist, the religious and historical strong links would smoothen the way