Indo-Pak ties cast shadow over Saarc

NEW DELHI: India-Pakistan tensions are set to once again cast a shadow over a crucial meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, raising questions about the regional grouping’s effectiveness in driving socio-economic development.

HT Image

Finance minister Arun Jaitley is expected to skip a meeting of Saarc finance ministers in Pakistan next week.

This comes close on the heels of bilateral tensions affecting a meeting of Saarc interior ministers in Islamabad on July 4.

According to Saarc convention, a summit is called off if the head of even one state doesn’t attend.

However, a ministerial meeting can go ahead if a country is represented by a minister of state or a senior official.

The six other members of the grouping – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka – have often looked on helplessly as ties between India and Pakistan have overshadowed Saarc deliberations over the years.

Nepal’s former foreign minister Ramesh Nath Pandey told HT on Tuesday that South Asian countries will not be able to develop separately if the region doesn’t develop collectively.

“As long as India and Pakistan do not have better ties, regional cooperation will not happen. And if regional cooperation does not happen, smaller states in South Asia will lose out,” he said. Pandey suggested that smaller states in the region should, in their own interest, play a role in bringing India and Pakistan together.

Former Indian foreign secretary Lalitman Singh said a lot hinged on the Saarc charter’s provision that the grouping couldn’t discuss bilateral issues. “The Saarc charter says bilateral issues will not be discussed. But India-Pakistan relations have always affected Saarc. It could be collateral damage. As it is, nothing much has progressed on Saarc, so one wouldn’t even know the extent of this damage,” he said.

Shambhu Ram Simkhada, a former Nepali envoy, too said India-Pakistan rivalry is the key bottleneck for Saarc’s growth.