APROPOS the opinion piece ‘Killing Saarc’ (Sept 15). The writer, while describing the background that brought SAARC into being states, that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was “conceived by Bangladesh’s then President Hussain Muhammad Ershad,and that the idea took time to win acceptance, and the charter was signed in Dhaka on Dec 8, 1985, by President Ershad, the king of Bhutan, the prime minister of India, the president of the Maldives, the king of Nepal and the president of Pakistan.”

I am afraid this is factually incorrect. The initiative and idea of Saarc was solely the brainchild of late Maj Gen Ziaur Rehman, the then President of Bangladesh.

In fact during an interview that I personally conducted with Lt Gen Ershad in Dhaka during 1988 – 89, he himself told me that Saarc was President Ziaur Rehman’s brain-child.

Syed Jawaid Iqbal

Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2018