Step forward: India tells Pak mark us present at Saarc

Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal told reporters in Kathmandu, Nepal today that PM Vajpayee would go to Islamabad for the summit.

‘‘This consensus would not have been reached if India was not going to participate in the summit,’’ Sibal said.

Pakistan’s turn to host the summit that is rotated annually between all seven members of the SAARC regional grouping came to nought last year when India refused to attend, saying that Islamabad must first show commitment to regional economic cooperation.

Meeting over the last couple of days in Kathmandu, the SAARC standing committee consisting of the Foreign Secretaries of all the countries, agreed on fresh dates for the January summit.

The PM’s decision to go to Islamabad also indicates New Delhi’s desire to reciprocate in full measure Pakistan’s new commitment to regional economic ties.

Clearly, the step-by-step normalisation process will get a big boost with this decision. Following the start of the Delhi—Lahore-Delhi bus service from tomorrow, it is expected that the political leadership in both countries will now attempt to break the bureaucratic logjam that has slowed down the process. This will only be the fifth time that an Indian prime minister is visiting Pakistan.

Sibal said he hoped that a South Asian Free Trade Area treaty would be signed before the summit takes place.

From September to December this year then, officials from all SAARC nations are expected to meet on a number of occasions to push forward ‘‘substantive progress’’ on the agreed-upon economic agenda.

Officials cautioned about the many slips that could still take place before the summit, but clearly, having committed itself to going to Islamabad, they agreed it would be extremely bad politics to now back down.

It may be recalled that PM Vajpayee had last October, in a bid to end the bitter bilateral recrimination between India and Pakistan, had suggested that a way out of the mess could be found if Islamabad was persuaded to to talk trade instead of Kashmir.

New Delhi kept quiet about Pakistan’s refusal to give it most favoured nation (MFN) status, arguing that if Islamabad agreed to move substantially on the Saarc preferential trading arrangement (SAPTA) as well as move on a draft agreement for SAFTA, Vajpayee would be in Islamabad.

Neither happened. India opted out of the summit. Since summit rules require consensus, it was scrapped.

By agreeing to go this time, New Delhi seems to have won the first round in the face-off with Pakistan. Islamabad’s assurances to give on regional economic cooepration also means that it will allow so many more items to be traded within the region that a separate and bilateral MFN with India becomes redundant.