S. Asian foreign ministers gather under Indo-Pakistan war clouds
S. Asian foreign ministers gather under Indo-Pakistan war clouds
Agence France-Presse, Kathmandu
South Asian foreign ministers gathered in Kathmandu on Wednesday,
ahead of a regional summit that will be dominated by the
escalation of military tensions between the region's two major
powers -- India and Pakistan.
The foreign ministers from seven countries which account for
one fifth of humanity will hold two days of talks prior to the
leadership summit that begins on Friday.
Founded in 1985, the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Leadership summits are meant to take place every year in an
effort to promote stability in a region which is among the most
volatile in the world, with constantly simmering bilateral
tensions and long-running internal conflicts.
The last summit was held in July 1998, since when disputes
between perennial rivals India and Pakistan have derailed all
attempts at holding another conference.
The agenda in Kathmandu includes terrorism, expanding commerce
within the region, curbing the drug trade and the trafficking of
women and children as prostitutes, and cleaning-up the
environment.
But inevitably, the summit will be dominated by India-Pakistan
relations which are currently at their lowest ebb since their
1971 war.
Both countries have massed troops and armor on their common
border in the wake of last month's attack on the Indian
parliament, which India has blamed on Pakistan-based militant
groups backed by Pakistani military intelligence.
While denying any involvement, Islamabad has bowed to
international pressure to crack down on the two militant outfits
identified by New Delhi, arresting their leaders and more than
100 members and freezing their assets.
India has ensured that terrorism will top the agenda at the
Kathmandu summit, and will lay out its case against Pakistan as a
sponsor of "cross-border terrorist activity" in the knowledge
that this particular SAARC meet will have an international
audience.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim militant
groups fighting Indian rule in the divided Himalayan region of
Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge but extends open moral and
diplomatic support to what it terms the Kashmiri "freedom
struggle."
India has so far ruled out any one-to-one meeting between
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez
Musharraf on the sidelines of the summit, but has left the door
open to talks between the foreign ministers.
Pakistan has repeatedly offered to hold a dialog at any level.
The SAARC standing committee, comprising the foreign
secretaries of the seven nations, recommended on Tuesday that UN
resolution 1373 on terrorism be implemented in its totality in
the region.
The resolution calls on all nations to prevent and suppress
the financing of terrorism, and refrain from any form of support
to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts.
Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer said she had held no
separate talks with her Pakistani counterpart, Inamu Haq.
"Both sides (India and Pakistan) did not seek a meeting. There
was no interaction on bilateral issues," Iyer said.
India and Pakistan are not the only SAARC countries embroiled
in some form of conflict.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's long-
running Tamil separatist war which was once fueled and encouraged
by neighboring India in the mid 1980s. One in three suicide
bombers in the world is believed to be a Tamil Tiger.
Nepal is also hit by civil strife. Maoist rebels have been
fighting to establish a republic since 1996 in an insurgency
which has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,300 people.
Bhutan has its own share of problems along the border with
Nepal and is currently trying to push out several Indian
separatist groups which operate from bases just inside the
Bhutanese border.