Senior defence analyst Lt General (Retd) Talat Masood has welcomed Irans initiative of trilateral process, which also involves Afghanistan, to deal with issues of violent extremism and terrorism. He said that Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan should have taken the initiative earlier but it is still not very late to promote cooperation and to jointly deal with the problems. Presidents Asif Ali Zardari, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamid Karzai have agreed to expand and strengthen trilateral cooperation for peace, stability and development in the region. The three leaders agreed that terrorism was a big hurdle to regional development, which must be tackled and eliminated through enhanced cooperation and that trade and economic activities should be promoted within the region. Masood said that the three countries have borders and situation in one country directly affect the other and their cooperation will help stability in the countries and the whole region. He said the three countries can stop extremism, insurgency and terrorism which is spread to the three countries. If one country is destabilized the other will be affected, he said. The analyst said the three leaders have taken decision to deal with the issue of terrorism and now it is important to implement the decision. To a question he said that it is now necessary to adopt regional approach to counter attempts to destabilize the three countries. He said regional approach to deal with the problems will produce good results, adding that the three countries should adopt aggressive policy to deal with terrorism and violent extremism.