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| 05 January 2004 | Monday | 12 Ziqa'ad 1424 |
High hopes mark start of summit
ISLAMABAD, Jan 4: South Asian leaders voiced lofty hopes at the start of their three-day summit in Islamabad on Sunday, but some of them appeared frustrated at the lack of progress by their seven-nation grouping
, mainly because of rivalry between the region's two main economies - India and Pakistan.
All of them agreed that the 18-year-old South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) must move faster to catch up with other such regional economic groupings or the one- fifth of the world population inhabiting the region would continue to suffer from poverty and ignorance.
Analysts said the member states seemed to be moving to breathe life into the grouping by moves such as a landmark agreement reached in Islamabad to create the South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) two years from now.
This has followed some recent and internationally acclaimed peace moves by both Pakistan and India to reduce tensions between them over the long-standing dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.
Mr Jamali, in his inaugural speech as the new Saarc chairman for one year, blamed political differences for South Asia being out of step with other regions which, he said, were able to transcend their differences and disputes and embark on a steady course to economic growth and development.
"It is the stark reality of political differences and disputes that has held back prospects of real economic cooperation in South Asia," he said.
This seemed to be a reference to the Kashmir problem, which cannot be taken up in the Saarc forum whose present charter bars raising bilateral disputes.
But there was no direct reference to Kashmir, and a Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman later refused to answer a question about this at a news briefing.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee also seemed to be having Kashmir - the cause of three wars between the two countries - in mind when he said South Asian countries "have been unable to forge an integrated economic understanding circumventing political differences".
"Mutual suspicions and petty rivalries have continued to haunt us. As a result, the peace dividend has bypassed our region," he said.
Then the Indian prime minister, who is also a poet, came with a quotable quote: "History can remind us, guide us, teach us; it should not shackle us. We have to look forward now, with collective approach now."
The summit was boycotted by leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy but attended by those of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.
While most leaders welcomed the recent thaw in India-Pakistan relations and called for the peace momentum to continue, Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom seemed to be chiding both India and Pakistan for their arms race.
"Our peoples need food, not fighter aircraft; books, not bombs; medicines, not missiles," said the long-serving president of a country of tiny islands who has attended all Saarc summits since the first in Dhaka in 1985.
"Saarc soon may become an anachronism if we, individually and collectively, do not find the heart to step into the future," he said.
"We must seize the present momentum and forge ahead," said Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia whose late husband, President Ziaur Rehman, had first propounded the idea of the South Asian grouping.
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