Pakistan Stalls Key Deals: SAARC a Flop Show?

mangaloretoday.com/ NDTV

Kathmandu, Nov 26, 2014: At the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Pakistan objected to three major agreements that aim at promoting connectivity, infrastructure and energy in the region, citing incomplete internal processes, but effectively rendering the group unable to hold a planned signing ceremony at the end of the day. While officials are hoping for a breakthrough at the retreat tomorrow, once again India-Pakistan tensions are holding regional progress hostage. Has the SAARC Summit turned out to be a flop show?

Sources on Wednesday said host Nepal will make a last-ditch effort to save the key agreements under discussion at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit being held in Kathmandu.

 

With Pakistan blocking key proposals made by India to integrate energy and transport grids in the region, the first SAARC summit in three years, which began in Kathmandu on Wednesday morning, may end up as a non-achiever.

Before the 18th SAARC summit began in Nepal, three agreements were prepared - two on improving road and railway networks in the region and one on making the electricity-starved region to trade in electricity. The future of the agreements is uncertain after Pakistan objected to them.

Sources said Nepal Prime Minister Sushil Koirala will try to placate his Pakistani counterpart when they meet for an informal retreat at a resort at Dhulikhel outside Kathmandu on Thursday. When asked by reporters, Sharif refused to comment ?on the allegations of stalling crucial agreements.

In its 30-year history, the SAARC has delivered almost negligible results as far as economic ties and development among the eight members - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - is concerned. Despite a free trade agreement signed in 2006, the right nations conduct barely 5 per cent of their total trade with each other.

Moreover, there are few transport and power linkages between the eight nations, a fact that was stressed upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his maiden address on Wednesday morning. "As SAARC, we have failed to move with the speed that our people expect and want. Nowhere in the world are collective efforts more urgent than in South Asia, and nowhere else is it so modest," he said.

India would like to make SAARC a viable economic counterweight to China. Modi hoped to build on goodwill he earned by inviting SAARC leaders, including Sharif, to his inauguration six months ago. But his ambition looked unlikely to gain traction in Kathmandu, with Indian officials saying Pakistan was blocking key proposals on energy transport.

After the May overtures to Sharif, ties between India and Pakistan were frayed by a series of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 20 people last month. Such divisions and mistrust have helped China establish a strong foothold, building roads and ports in the region. The SAARC summit on Wednesday morning was held in a hall China built for Nepal.