It gives me a special pleasure to address you today and to welcome you to our training workshop on "Radio for Peace". The idea for this project was borne almost one year ago and had it not been for the events of September 11th, we would have come together here in October last year. Since then, the world has changed, policies and priorities have changed, and a meaningful dialogue between different cultures and countries has become more imperative than ever before.

I am very happy to see this dialogue initiated today - for this workshop is not only meant to provide professional training, to enhance professional skills and to encourage professional commitment. This workshop is also meant to provide a platform for a fruitful exchange of ideas and opinions between broadcasters from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Germany - three countries united in the strive for peace and understanding. And where could this be better achieved than in a training situation where people are sitting together, learning from each other and sharing their thoughts with each other?

"Radio for Peace" is the title of this workshop. We have chosen it deliberately because we strongly believe that the media - and radio in particular - have an important role to play in communicating values and visions to audiences in conflict regions. How do people learn to trust and respect each other inspite of differences in opinion and self-perception? How can we cross the barriers of prejudice and misunderstanding and build bridges between people of different cultures, creeds and political leanings?

These are the questions that radio broadcasters are facing daily and these are the questions that we will try to answer jointly in this Peshawar workshop. And in all this, we will be guided by the conviction that radio can be turned into a powerful medium of development and reconciliation - provided we have the attitude and the attitude to fully explore this potential. What does that mean? It means that we need to explore the three C´s in radio: these are creativity, credibility and courage. If we want to raise people´s awareness, if we want them to accept new ideas and change their attitudes - we need to turn radio into a true medium of communication - not to the people, but with the people. For a long time, radio has been a territory reserved mainly for the powerful and the prominent - an aloof medium reducing the ordinary listener to a passive receiver of messages from the top. But credibility thrives in involvement and participation - and this is where radio offers a tremendous potential. More than any other medium, radio can provide a forum for dialogue and interaction. By giving a voice to the voiceless, it can turn into a trustworthy friend and companion - a true servant of the people which, I believe is our mandate and our mission.

Access radio will therefore be one of the main issues in this workshop - together with many other topics that are relevant to radio for peace. In the coming three weeks we want to jointly explore with you new approaches to radio programming - not in the form of lecturing, but by way of a highly interactive and participative process of sharing ideas and learning from each other. We see training as a journey of discovery in which everyone has to play his or her part. And we would therefore like to encourage you to actively contribute to discussions and exercises, to ask as many questions as possible and to contradict if necessary. For we have not come with ready-made solutions - all we can offer you are some options for you to choose from, some seeds if you like which you may want to use or discard.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me take this opportunity to thank all those without whose active support and gracious hospitality this workshop would not have come alive. First of all, I would like to thank the management of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation for their support and partnership in this training workshop. I must also thank the FES, and in particular Mr. Lehrke, a good old friend of our training centre, who spontaneously agreed to co-fund the project. And finally, a big word of thanks goes to Prof. Shajehan who kindly offered to host this workshop at the newly established Media Training Centre here in Peshawar. With the active assistance and commitment of these three partners, this workshop is bound to be a success. For us, that is Mrs Heidi Walsh, the project manager in charge of this workshop, Mr. Kolakowski, her co-trainer and Mr. Bürki, our technical trainer. I can say that we are looking forward to an inspiring and enriching training experience.