Hopes raised for India-Pakistan relations ( 2004-01-04 09:14) (Agencies)
Terrorism, free trade and fighting poverty top the agenda at a South Asian
summit on Sunday, but attention will be focused on the sidelines, where
Pakistani and Indian leaders have a historic opportunity to cement peace
overtures after a half-century of hatred.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, left, and his Pakistani counterpart Zafarullah Khan Jamali,
right, listen to national anthems at Islamabad airport, Pakistan, on
Saturday, Jan. 3, 2004. [AP]
The leaders of
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are
meeting in the Pakistani capital for the three-day summit. A breakthrough
agreement that would create a free-trade zone by 2006 was reached at pre-summit
meetings on Friday.
Far more interesting will be the chance for talks between Pakistani President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first
since the two men sparked the thaw in relations last year.
In recent months, the region's two most populous nations have traded nuclear
brinksmanship for detente, enforcing a total cease-fire between forces on each
side of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. They have resumed air, rail
and bus links and restored top-level diplomatic relations.
Both nations have expressed a willingness to try new ideas to solve the
Kashmir conflict, the source of two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors
since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
"There's a general assumption that this opportunity will not be missed,"
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said Saturday.
There are hopes that a formal peace dialogue could be announced.
"The results of such a meeting may not be spectacular, but it will be a
breaking of the ice," said Asma Jehangir, a prominent member of the independent
Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy. "This conflict has held the whole
region hostage, so just the fact that a meeting is happening is very
significant."
Vajpayee has said he would meet with Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali,
who is Pakistan's official representative at the summit, but insists he will not
discuss flashpoint issues like Kashmir. He has not yet agreed to one-on-one
talks with Musharraf, the nation's real power broker. Officials on both sides
say privately that a meeting is likely, however.
It is Vajpayee's first visit to Pakistan since he met former Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif for talks in the eastern city of Lahore in February 1999. Several
months later, the two nations' armies were fighting near the remote Kashmir
border town of Kargil, killing more than 1,000 soldiers and inflaming nuclear
tensions. By the end of that year, Sharif was gone — overthrown by Musharraf in
a bloodless coup.
Officials from all seven countries acknowledge that South Asia's fortunes are
intertwined with those of its two largest members, whose squabbling has undercut
regional trade.
Disagreements between Pakistan and India are a key reason that in its 18
years in existence, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or
SAARC, has little to show for itself.
Poverty among the 1.3 billion people of the region — one-fifth of the world's
population, is endemic. In 2001 and 2002, the nations missed two deadlines to
create a free trade zone before Friday's agreement, which will break down
tariffs starting in 2006.
The association's initiatives to fight human trafficking, improve education
and upgrade infrastructure are mostly still paper fantasies.
In fact, the seven nations have had a hard time agreeing even on when and
where to meet.
The Islamabad gathering — only the 12th summit of heads of state since 1985
in what was supposed to be a yearly event — was delayed for 12 months because of
India's refusal to come.
Many at this year's summit say they hope the India-Pakistan issue does not
cloud other desperately important challenges facing the region.
Nepal has been losing ground to a bloody Maoist insurgency that is in control
of a third of the country. Peace talks to end a 20-year civil war in Sri Lanka
that has claimed 65,000 lives are sputtering. Even the tiny mountain kingdom of
Bhutan launched a December military campaign to oust rebels using their
territory to attack troops in neighboring India.
The regional summit is taking place amid unprecedented security in the wake
of two recent attempts by suspected Islamic militants to assassinate Musharraf.
Weeks before the summit, officials began sprucing up the capital — adding
several sculptures along a route delegates must travel to reach the convention
site, repaving roads and placing festive lights and multicolored flags on nearby
buildings.
But no amount of window-dressing can mask the main challenges facing the
seven South Asian nations.
"There has to be cynicism because SAARC has talked big but done nothing,"
said Jehangir. "If anything, the problems of the countries in the region —
poverty, religious intolerance, human rights — feed off each other."
