KARACHI: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, while speaking to the eighth the International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) on Thursday, said that unresolved issues need to be addressed in order to ensure security in the entire region.

"Sometimes security of the whole region can be threatened by a single unresolved issue such as Palestine and Kashmir and obviously necessitating a regional approach to conflict resolution," he said.

General Raheel further added that the meaning of security has evolved into a larger context over time, and more happens now in a decade than it used to in centuries in the past. Hence, making predictions about the future is needs careful thought.

"In a nutshell, the word security has already transformed into a much larger context that would not have made sense only 20 years ago," the army chief added.

In the world today, security does not only apply to borders, but securing our cultures and way of life are also seen as primary security concerns.

According to a report by Radio Pakistan, the army chief visited various stalls exhibited by different companies, and also exchanged views with foreign delegates, at the IDEAS exhibition.

The four-day exhibition, which began at the Karachi Expo Centre on December 1, will conclude today. 88 delegations from 47 countries are taking part in the exhibition.

More on this: Defence expo begins tomorrow

Several high-level meetings between foreign delegates, key government officials, and participants of the exhibition have been planned on the sidelines of the exhibition for forging alliances in defence production.

The Director Media, Defence Export Promotion Organisation (Depo), Ministry of Defence Production, Commodore Tahir Javed, briefed journalists about the exhibition on Saturday.

Also read: Ideas 2014: Arms for 'peace'

“We have received overwhelming response from exhibitors and delegations from across the globe as out of 88 delegations around 47 are headed either by defence ministers, joint chiefs, services chiefs or defence secretaries of their countries. In addition to this, 333 firms will exhibit their products of which 256 are foreign and 77 Pakistani,” Commodore Javed said.