Musharraf-Vajpayee chat warms up mood at summit
Muddassir Rizvi
Pakistan President Musharraf’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vayjpayee on the sidelines of the South Asian summit Monday - their first chat in nearly three years -- has overshadowed the otherwise high-profile meeting underway here. The international community and the press seem to be more interested in monitoring any progress in ties between rival neighbours, the most powerful nations in the seven-nation bloc called the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Its other member countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives -- also attach high hopes on the thaw in Indo-Pakistan relations, which have long held the organisation hostage. Vajpayee called the one-hour talk a ‘’courtesy call’’, and a Pakistani official said ‘’detailed discussions’’ that ended ‘’on a positive note’’ were held between the two leaders. ‘’It is necessary that the two countries have adequate representation and that dialogue goes on continuously, that we understand each other’s difficulties and find a way out together,’’ Vajpayee said.
There is a long way ahead to repairing frosty ties between the two countries, whose relations have turned slightly warmer in the last few months, and both sides are wary of raising hopes too high. Still, Monday’s meeting is being seen as the culmination of confidence building measures, including restoration of road, air and rail links. In other words, the prospect of dividends of a more cordial relationship between the two South Asian nuclear rivals has many excited. Nepal’s PM Surya Bahadur Thapa says that improved India-Pakistan ties would relax tensions and provide “a new and meaningful impetus to cooperation among SAARC countries”.
Even people in Pakistan are more concerned with Vajpayee’s presence in the city, hoping it will lead to something “positive’. While religious parties, particularly those like Jamaat-i-Islami that support militancy in Kashmir, maintain their hard-line rhetoric of ‘no compromise’ with India, there have been public calls that Vajpayee address the people of Pakistan just as former US President Bill Clinton did when he visited here in 2000.
Founded 18 years ago, the association has been a non-starter in reinvigorating regional cooperation primarily due bilateral disputes. Topping the list has been the five-decade-old Kashmir dispute between the nuclear neighbours, which has pushed the two countries to two wars in 1948 and 1965 and a smaller conflict in Kargil in 1999. A 30-minute meeting Sunday between Vajpayee and Jamali preceded the Monday talk between Musharraf and Vajpayee. Meantime, the summit started discussion on a six-point agenda finalised by the foreign ministers of the seven member countries. The summit agenda includes a South Asian Free Trade Agreement, an additional summit protocol to the 1987 SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, social charter, poverty alleviation strategy and the concept of a South Asian Development Bank. Any headway in operationalising the summit agenda after its approval, particularly the new clauses on anti-terrorism, will largely depend on the state of political ties among members.
Vajpayee placed similar stress in his address, calling upon the South Asian nations to put aside their “petty disputes”. “History can remind us, guide us or warn us. It should not shackle us. We have to look forward now, now with a collective approach in mind,” he said. The seeming attempt to look beyond politics was underlined by the South Asian leaders’ signing on Sunday of the social charter, which binds SAARC to establish a people-centred framework for social development. But civil society groups say that South Asian nations must focus on peace building, which will lead to social and economic cooperation. A joint declaration issued by the assembly of civil society groups, which is meeting here on the summit’s sidelines, called on SAARC leaders to sign a ‘no war’ pact and declare South Asia as a nuclear-free zone. The seven countries must reduce military expenditures and divert the savings to creating ‘’social securities’’, argued Padma Rathnayeka, director of South Asia Partnership Sri Lanka.
IPS