New Delhi torpedoes 19th SAARC summit

Islamabad says India’s decision to pull out of meeting ‘unfortunate’

ISLAMABAD: India’s obduracy and its desperate campaign to isolate Pakistan have sabotaged a key regional summit on Tuesday. New Delhi pulled out of the 19th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) in a huff. The host, Pakistan, described the Indian decision as ‘unfortunate’.

The Saarc summit, which brings together eight member states in the region, is scheduled to be held in Islamabad on November 9-10. Citing an increase in cross-border terrorist attacks, India announced on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be attending the summit.





“The Indian government has informed the current Saarc chair, Nepal, that increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th Saarc summit in Islamabad in November 2016,” the Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

“In the prevailing circumstances the government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit in Islamabad,” Vikash Swarup said. Some other Saarc member states have also conveyed their reservations about attending the Islamabad summit, he claimed.

In Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakria termed the Indian decision unfortunate but dismissed the ‘excuse’ given by India to pull out of the crucial regional meeting of heads of states and government.

He pointed out it was India that had been perpetrating and financing terrorism in Pakistan. “The public confession by Kulbushan Jadhav, Indian intelligence agency RAW’s officer, is a living proof besides many more evidences,” Zakria said.



He went on to say that “it is India which has violated the international law and UN Charter by interfering in the internal matters of a sovereign state, Pakistan”.



The Indian move has not come as a surprise as the media there has been reporting since the Uri attack that the Modi government was considering boycotting the Saarc summit besides revoking the Most-Favored Nation (MFN) status to Pakistan and reviewing the Indus Water Treaty.

Although no official announcement has been made yet, the cancellation of the Saarc summit is now a foregone conclusion.

Saarc, which comprises Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, has often been held hostage by animosity between Islamabad and New Delhi.

The Indian announcement came hours after its foreign secretary summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit for a second time in a week to give him ‘evidence of cross-border origins’ of the Uri attack.

According to the Indian foreign ministry, local villagers in the Uri sector on September 21 apprehended and handed over to Indian security forces two individuals from Azad Kashmir, who acted as guides for the Uri attackers.

“Their personal particulars are — Faizal Hussain Awan, 20 years, s/o Gul Akbar, resident of Potha Jahangir, Muzaffarabad and Yasin Khursheed, 19 years, s/o Mohammed Khurshid, resident of Khiliana Kalan, Muzaffarabad,” Basit was told.

During his interrogation, Awan has deposed to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that they had ‘guided and facilitated’ the border crossing of the group that perpetrated the September 18 Uri massacre, the foreign secretary told Pakistan’s envoy.

Sources in the Foreign Office, however, told The Express Tribune that the Pakistani high commissioner rejected the Indian allegations as an attempt to shift the global spotlight off the ongoing Indian brutalities in Kashmir.



“The fact that India immediately started blaming Pakistan shows its real intentions i.e. to divert attention from the atrocities being committed by Indian forces in Kashmir. That is clearly to India’s advantage and not Pakistan’s,” a senior Foreign Office official said.

The official pointed out that if India was serious why it was not agreeing to an international investigation into the attack. “India must understand that the struggle in Indian occupied Kashmir is indigenous and no amount of gimmicks will work,” the official added.

He said not a single country “except Afghanistan for its own peculiar reasons” subscribed to India s ‘pathological narrative’ of accusing Pakistan of terrorism at the UN General Assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2016.