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.