Friday, April 6, 2007

SAARC big on ideas, short on substance

The turmoil across most of South Asia blights the best intentions

CONFLICT-RIDDEN South Asian nations made little headway in fighting terrorism or boosting trade at a summit this week despite repeated calls for action, analysts said Thursday.

The eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SSARC) ended a two-day summit Wednesday with a declaration that underscored an “urgent need” to implement ideas, more than two decades after the bloc was founded. But there was scant detail about how that would take place.

“There has not been any substantial progress on the two big issues - terrorism and trade despite the fact that every SAARC member is experiencing terrorism of some sort,” said security expert Chitrapu Uday Bhaskar.

“No significant progress has been made this time,” he said. Set up in 1985, SAARC has been criticised for achieving little, mostly because of tensions between key members India and Pakistan which have fought three wars, two over the disputed region of Kashmir.

At the summit, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz stood firmly behind Islamabad’s position that Kashmir was the “key dispute” and that free trade with India depended on progress on the issue. Led by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, most leaders called for action against terrorism, but the New Delhi final declaration did not specify any concrete measures.

The turmoil across most of South Asia blights the best intentions, analysts say. Sri Lanka is fighting Tamil rebels and India is battling Islamic militants in Kashmir. Pakistan and Afghanistan are struggling with the Taliban, while Bangladesh is under emergency rule. Nepal has taken tentaive steps to peace after a decade of Maoist insurgency.

“All these regional problems have a bearing on collective action,” Bhaskar said. But experts cautioned against writing off the grouping completely. Afghanistan was formally included in the bloc at the New Delhi gathering. Observers from the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea also attended the summit for the first time.

Observer status was granted to Iran for the next summit in the Maldives in 2008, despite diplomatic howls from Western nations. “Iran’s inclusion is a very big development. It will help Iran, and it will also help India as Tehran and Kabul would nudge Pakistan for greater integration into SAARC,” said South Asia expert Sukh Deo Muni.

India’s announcement of duty-free access to neighbours other than Pakistan pleased economists. New Delhi also pledged a more liberal visa regime as a small but significant step in improving trust.

“As the biggest economy in South Asia, it is only in the fitness of things that India should take the first step and throw open its doors to free imports from within the region,” The Hindu newspaper said in an editorial.

“It will put pressure on other countries to take similar steps,” said Muni, who is from the independent New Delhi think-tank Observer Research Foundation.

Last year the South Asian Free Trade Agreement came into force, aiming to create the world’s biggest free-trade area. But Indian and Pakistan are still haggling over details and the volume of trade remains very low. Pakistan remains reluctant to grant Most Favoured Nation status to India.

The rate of growth of trade has however improved in the region despite the partial failure of the free-trade pact. “The trade numbers may not be very impressive, but it’s unfair to compare South Asia to trade blocs of advanced countries,” Muni said.

Source: AFP

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