National 1 (Spotlight Weekly)

In Slow Motion

Although the Kathmandu meeting was able to fix the date for the 12th summit, doubts persist as Indo-Pak rivalry continues to hold the regional body hostage

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

Eighteen years after it came into being, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) continues to be dogged by disputes between its two bigger members.

In this age of regional groupism, South Asian countries have no alternative to the SAARC. The regional body is thus caught between the clashes of these two interests delaying its pace considerably.

When the foreign secretaries of all the seven member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) arrived in Kathmandu to hold the special meeting of the Standing Committee to thrash out issues that were holding it back from organizing the summit, powerful media organizations from India focused on one single aspect ñ that of Indo-Pak rivalry. Their concentration was on whether the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan would hold any bilateral talks - which did not take place.

Fortunately, the foreign secretaries have agreed to hold the 12th summit in January 4-6, 2004 in Pakistan. But then they had similarly agreed to hold it a year ago. But later on India decided not to participate.

"Well yes the SAARC process has been slow to catch on. But look at other mature organizations like EU which is also passing through controversies," Yadav Kanta Silwal, former general secretary of SAARC told a FM radio recently. "There are different opinions but what we must realize is that the urge to forge ahead the regional body strongly exists among the leaders of the region."

Apart from deciding on the new dates, the standing committee meeting also agreed to finalize the draft of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) to be presented at the summit in Pakistan and simultaneously work on the South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA).

The fifth meeting of experts on SAPTA has been proposed for September. The meeting also discussed on issues like poverty alleviation, economic and technical cooperation. The meeting agreed to reconstitute technical committees and to form specialized working groups on emerging areas of cooperation like biotech, intellectual property rights, tourism and energy.

Pakistan is to host meeting of communications ministers in November whereas Bangladesh is to host meeting of commerce ministers to discuss a common stand on WTO. The standing committee also discussed the SAARC Regional Convention on Terrorism and decided to hold a meeting of senior officials in Colombo next month to review the progress in the implementation of the convention.

"We are happy to have arrived consensus regarding the holding of the 12th summit. Likewise, the standing committee made progress on different issues like economic cooperation," said Madhu Raman Acharya, Nepalese foreign secretary.

Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa and the chair of the SAARC inaugurated the special meeting of the foreign secretary-level standing committee meeting in the capital on July 9. PM Thapa addressed the meeting and expressed that he was keen to hand over the chair to Pakistan.

According to Dr. Madan Kumar Bhattarai, spokesperson at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, proposals from different regional and technical committees were submitted at the meeting. Likewise, the meeting also discussed on SAARC Secretariat budget, SAARC-Japan special fund, SAARC-World Bank cooperation and so on.

Prior to the meeting of the standing committee, the joint secretary level meeting of the program committee was held which submitted its recommendations to the standing committee.

Apart from the regional meet, the occasion also provided an opportunity for bilateral talks between foreign secretaries of South Asian countries. Nepalese foreign secretary Acharya held bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart Kanwal Sibal on issues ranging from water resource, border management, security cooperation, inundation and so on.