Govt keeps pledge not to let Pak derail SAARC

This is the third SAARC meeting in Pakistan to which India has sent a delegation since tensions flared up because of the December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament House.

In February, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission K.C. Pant had gone for a meeting of the SAARC Poverty Commission. In March, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj went to Islamabad for the SAARC I&B Ministers’ Meet.

Ghosh has been chosen to represent the Government of India at the official-level meet because he is the point man in the PMO who oversees poverty-alleviation projects.

All eyes are now on the annual SAARC Summit in January, this time scheduled to be held in Islamabad. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha had hinted in Kathmandu a few weeks ago that India would not derail the summit simply because it’s being held in Pakistan. His statement was widely interpreted as a signal that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would go to Islamabad for the summit.

Official sources cautioned against linking the return of normalcy in Indo-Pak ties with the efforts to keep SAARC going.

They said that the resumption of the bilateral dialogue was entirely dependent on the cessation of cross-border terrorism.

This does not preclude India and Pakistan participating in multilateral meets, even if they are held in Islamabad, official sources pointed out.

The Government is believed to have taken a policy decision earlier this year that India would not allow its diplomatic war against Pakistan to affect the South Asian multilateral forum.

The decision came in the wake of pleas from the other SAARC nations at the Kathmandu Summit in January this year.

They had asked both India and Pakistan to keep their bilateral tensions out of SAARC.