Pakistan demurs on Indian invite for speakers’ summit

Official says NA speaker will not attend Indore conference due to Delhi’s hostile policies

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has turned down an Indian invitation for a South Asian speakers’ summit scheduled to be held later this month in Indore, officials confirmed on Monday.

A Foreign Office official told The Express Tribune that National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq would be unable to travel to India for the conference, citing his official engagements due to the ongoing lower house session.



“Since the dates of the event are clashing with the NA session, the speaker has conveyed [to] the host government his inability to attend the speakers’ summit,” the official said while requesting anonymity. The official would not say Pakistan declined the Indian invitation because of the ongoing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

However, another official familiar with the development claimed that Islamabad decided to stay away from the speakers’ conference primarily due to India’s ‘hostile policies’ towards Pakistan.

Islamabad had to call off summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in November last year when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi boycotted the conference weeks after the deadly attack on the Indian army base in the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan also expressed its unwillingness to host a conference of Commonwealth countries’ speakers after India threatened to boycott it if Islamabad refused to invite the speaker of the assembly of Indian Occupied Kashmir.

After the Uri attack, the Modi government launched a relentless campaign to isolate Pakistan globally, although its efforts could not achieve much success as even countries such as Russia refused to toe New Delhi’s line.

Pakistan’s decision to decline the Indian invitation was also taken in view of the ‘mistreatment’ meted out to Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, who travelled to Amritsar in December to attend the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan.

Earlier, Indian media reported that in a potential ice-breaker, New Delhi invited Pakistan for the South Asian speakers’ summit, which would be held in Indore on February 18-19. Other South Asian nations, all members of SAARC, reportedly confirmed their participation for the Summit on achieving Sustainable Development Goals.



Tensions between the two neighbours have been simmering for months as India continued to blame Pakistan for alleged cross border terrorism while Islamabad insisted that Indian intelligence agency, RAW, was fomenting violence in the country. Relations have deteriorated further after India threatened to revoke the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that survived three wars and other bouts of tensions between the two countries.

Despite India’s belligerence, Pakistan is adamant that it is not shying away from resolving all disputes, including longstanding Kashmir through dialogue. India, on the other hand, says it will not enter into any meaningful dialogue until Pakistan stops patronising militant groups.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2017.