SAARC meet uncertain as members pull out

India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan have expressed their ‘inability’ to attend the summit, a senior foreign ministry official in Nepal said. India’s foreign ministry on Tuesday announced its decision to skip the meeting, saying ‘increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country’ had created an environment that was not conducive. India has blamed Pakistan for a deadly assault this month on an Army base in the Uri of Jammu and Kashmir that has heightened fears of a new conflict between the neighbours. Pakistan, which rejects the accusations, called India’s move to pull out of the SAARC summit “unfortunate”. 

A Bangladesh foreign ministry official said Dhaka had told Nepal it would not attend because of Pakistan’s interference in its internal affairs. The two countries have been in a diplomatic spat over executions by Bangladesh of people convicted of crimes during its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Junior foreign affairs minister Mohammad Shahriar Alam said Dhaka had told Pakistan, which is chairing the meeting, of its ‘inability to attend the summit due to our engagements’. Rishi Adhikari, the foreign affairs adviser to Nepal’s prime minister Prachanda, said the Himalayan nation’s government would discuss the matter with SAARC members so that there was ‘no long-term effect’ on the regional grouping. 

Unfazed by India and three other SAARC member nations deciding not to participate in the grouping’s summit here, Pakistan on Wednesday said it will go ahead and host the event in November. Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan will host the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in November, Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday. Zakaria was quoted as saying that it was learnt from the Indian External Affairs Ministry’s tweet that India is not going to participate in the SAARC Summit, a decision he called ‘unfortunate’. “While we have not received any official communication in this regard, the Indian announcement is unfortunate,” he said. The spokesperson also said Pakistan is committed to regional peace and will continue working for the broader interest of the people of the region, according to the report.

The US has called for ‘de-escalation of the political discourse’ between India and Pakistan amid the war of words between the two nations after Uri terror attack that prompted New Delhi to pull out of the SAARC Summit in Islamabad in November. The State Department also said it would continue to put pressure on them to respond to those groups who are seeking safe haven on Pakistan’s borders. “What we have said it many times from the podium – is we want to see closer and normalisation of relationship between India and Pakistan,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said told reporters at his daily news conference. “It would benefit the region. We want to see de-escalation in the political discourse between the two countries and greater communication and coordination between them,” Toner said.

Pakistan claimed the World Bank has ‘committed’ itself to ‘timely fulfilling its obligations’ under the Indus Water Treaty while remaining neutral as Islamabad approached the international lender amid reports that India may revoke the 56-yearold deal.

A Pakistani delegation led by the Attorney General for Pakistan, Ashtar Ausaf Ali, met with senior officials of the World Bank at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, to discuss matters relating to the Indus Waters Treaty that was brokered by the World Bank. 

“We discussed the formation of Court of arbitration for resolving the matter of water disputes especially those related to construction of hydropower projects,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power said in a statement. “The World Bank will be deciding the issue in the next few days,” it added. “In the meeting with the Pakistani delegation, the World Bank committed itself to timely fulfilling its obligations under the treaty while remaining neutral,” said a statement issued by the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. 

Under the treaty, which was signed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan President Ayub Khan in September 1960 and brokered by the World Bank, waters of six rivers -Beas, Ravi, Sutlej, Indus, Chenab and Jhelum - were to be shared between the two countries. Its Article IX deals with arbitration of disputes between the parties concerning the interpretation or application of the treaty or the existence of any fact which, if established, might constitute a breach of the treaty. Under the treaty, the World Bank has an important role in establishment of the Court of Arbitration by facilitating the process of appointment of three judges, called Umpires, to the Court, while each country appoints two arbitrators. The Pakistani officials met with senior officials of the World Bank to insist on early appointment of the judges and empanelment the court, it said.