Washington, DC; 18-23 October 2009
Major General (ret.) Mahmud Durrani served as Pakistan Defense and Military Attaché in Washington from 1977 to 1982. Most recently Major General Durrani was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US (July 2006 to April 2008) and was advisor to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on National Security from April 2008 to January 2009. After retirement from the Army, Major General Durrani has remained actively involved in working towards peace between Pakistan and India as member of a dedicated group of Pakistanis and Indians. He is also the author of Pakistan's Strategic Thinking and the Role of Nuclear Weapons (2004).
Ejaz Haider is Op-Ed Editor, Daily Times and Consulting Editor, The Friday Times. He hosts a political talk-show "Siyasyaat," on Samaa TV. Haider's areas of interest include politics, political Islam, defense and security, theories and concepts of war, and civil-military relations. He has written extensively on these subjects for various publications – including The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Beirut-based The Daily Star, the Indian Express, Times of India, India Abroad, Central Asia Monitor and The World Today, a monthly publication of the Royal Institute for International Relations in London. Haider has been a Ford Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.
Hon. Ahsan Iqbal is the information secretary of the PML-N, Pakistan’s second largest party in the current national assembly. The party’s head, Mian Nawaz Sharif has been twice Prime Minister. Iqbal was re-elected Member of the National Assembly for the third time in February 2008. He served as a Federal Minister for Education in the PPP-PML(N) coalition government after the 2008 elections, but later resigned when his party pulled out of the coalition on 12 May, 2008. Previously, Mr. Iqbal has been Chief Coordinator / Minister of State, Pakistan 2010 Program (1997-99), Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission (1998-99); Chairman, Good Governance Group, Government of Pakistan (1997-99); Chairman, Pakistan Engineering Board, and Chairman, National Steering Committees on Information Technology and IQM and Productivity (1998-99). He also served as Policy and Public Affairs Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan (1993).
Ambassador Aziz Ahmed Khan joined Pakistan Foreign Service in 1969 and served in various capacities in Pakistan Missions to Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Maputo, Vienna and Lisbon. Amb. Aziz Ahmed served as Ambassador to Afghanistan Nov 1996 to June 2000 and as Additional Foreign Secretary of Pakistan from June 2000 to June 2002. Most recently he has served as High Commissioner to India (June 2003 to Nov 2006) and was a Consultant at the National Defense University Islamabad (May 2007 to Sept 2008).
Brig. (ret.) Feroz Hasan Khan is a former Brigadier in the Pakistan Army. Prior to his retirement he served as Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs, within the Strategic Plans Division, Joint Services Headquarters. Khan had been a key contributor in formulating Pakistan’s security policies on nuclear and conventional arms control and strategic stability in South Asia. Khan holds a M.A. in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University, Washington DC. He has held fellowships at Stanford University, the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Brookings Institution amongst others. Khan recently co-authored a book chapter “Pakistan: The Dilemma of Deterrence” in The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia and is currently working on a book on Pakistan nuclear weapons and U.S Policy. He is currently on the faculty of Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California.
Lt. Gen. (ret.) Talat Masood served in the Pakistani Army for 39 years, retiring in 1990 as Secretary for Defense Production in the Ministry of Defense. Prior to this, General Masood was chairman and chief executive of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Board. General Masood has authored several articles and book chapters and is a frequent participant and speaker in international conferences. He writes regularly on security and political issues in national newspapers and foreign magazines and is a prominent commentator on national and international television and radio networks. General Masood is the chief coordinator for Pugwash in Pakistan and a member of the international Pugwash Council.
Ahmer Bilal Soofi is a lawyer in the Supreme Court of Pakistan and is the founding President of Research Society of International Law; the first independent think tank of international law in Pakistan. He has appeared in several prominent cases including the Dr AQ Khan case, the Lal Masjid law enforcement operation case and the Pakistan Steel Mills case. Mr. Soofi represented Pakistan at the UN General Assembly’s Ad-hoc Committee and led negotiations on behalf of G-77 countries to finalize the UN Convention on Corruption. Mr. Soofi currently lectures on international law at the National Defense University, Navy War College, Command and Staff College in Pakistan and writes on international law in leading dailies of Pakistan.
Moeed Yusuf is a political scientist with a regional expertise in South Asia. He is a doctoral candidate and Fellow at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Concurrently, he is a Research Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He also serves as the Director of Strategic Studies at Strategic and Economic Policy Research (Pvt. Ltd), Pakistan. Mr. Yusuf specializes in South Asian political and strategic issues. He has spent the last five years researching various aspects of Pakistan’s foreign policy and domestic politics. He has also been involved in providing policy inputs to the Pakistan government in various consulting capacities over the years. He is a syndicated columnist for The Friday Times, Pakistan’s leading English weekly. Moeed is currently working on a co-authored book project, tentatively titled Pakistan’s Futures. The exercise entails a detailed scenario building exercise aimed at understanding Pakistan’s potential future trajectory. His recent publications include Promoting Cross-LoC Trade in Kashmir: An Analysis of the Joint Chamber (United States Institute of Peace), Does Nuclear Energy have a Future? (Frederick Pardee Center), Prospects of Youth Radicalization in Pakistan: Implications for U.S. Policy (Brookings Institution), and Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons (Brookings Institution).
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Paolo Cotta-Ramusino has been Secretary General of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Nobel Peace Prize 1995; www.pugwash.org) since August 2002. He is also Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Milano (Italy) and Senior Researcher at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics. In 1983, he co-founded the Italian Union of Scientists for Disarmament (USPID), which organizes the Castiglioncello Conferences on problems related to Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. He was formerly Director of the Program on Science, Technology and International Security at the Landau Network - Centro Volta (Como) (where he conducted research on the conversion of Russian Nuclear Cities and the development of programs for cooperation on energy-related issues in the Korean peninsula).
We would like to acknowledge the Ploughshares Fund and ML Resources Social Vision for their generous support in making this dialogue possible
