In a statement, India said increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of Saarc Member States “by one country” have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup, in a statement, said that India has conveyed to current SAARC Chair Nepal its decision not to attend the summit, for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to go.
“India remains steadfast in its commitment to regional cooperation, connectivity and contacts but believes that these can only go forward in an atmosphere free of terror. In the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad,” the statement said.
Swarup said that some other Saarc Member States have also conveyed their reservation about attending the Islamabad Summit in November 2016.
The other countries unwilling to attend are said to be Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan, according to sources.
The decision to boycott the Saarc Summit comes as India has been hyping its diplomatic offensive against Pakistan over the past few days, over the latter’s open backing of the Kashmir unrest and also after the terror attack on an army camp in Uri on September 18 that left 18 soldiers dead.
Days after Prime Minister Modi announced that the sacrifices of the Indian soldiers in Uri would not go waste, the government decided to revisit the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and maximise its own utilisation of waters of three upstream rivers that were being used by Pakistan.
India is also working to revoke the Most Favoured Nation status to Pakistan in trade and Modi is to hold a meeting on the issue on Thursday.
The announcement to boycott the Saarc summit comes as India has been unsparing in its attack, at the United Nations General Assembly, on Pakistan for sponsoring terror. India has also announced on the floor of the world body that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will remain so.
Tightening the screws on Pakistan further, Narendra Modi has convened a meeting on Thursday to review the Most Favoured Nation status to the neighbour, sources said here.
The meeting will be attended by senior officials, including those from the External Affairs and Commerce ministries.
India granted the MFN status to Pakistan in 1996 but the neighbouring country has so far not reciprocated.
According to obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO), member countries shall extend Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to each other automatically unless otherwise specified in the agreement or the schedule notified to the WTO by the member country.
India has been moving on several fronts against Pakistan as part of its response in the wake of the Uri terror attack and has also decided to isolate Pakistan diplomatically for “exporting terror”.
India has blamed militants from Pakistan for the September 18 attack.
India Inc said that MFN has made no difference to the “abysmally low” level of bilateral trade.
“India-Pakistan trade relations are abysmally low accounting for less than half a per cent of India’s total global trade involving both exports and imports,” the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) said in a release here.
Official data showed that out of India’s total merchandise trade of $643 billion in 2015-16, Pakistan accounted for a meagre $2.67 billion.
“In all, trade with Pakistan was equivalent to 0.41 per cent of India’s global merchandise commerce,” Secretary General Assocham D.S. Rawat said in the statement.
“Thus, the MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status, or no MFN, has not made much of a difference on the bilateral trade,” he said.
“While India has granted Pakistan the MFN status, Islamabad had not responded. But even with the MFN status, Pakistan’s exports to India remained less than half a billion dollars,” he added.
India’s exports to Pakistan last year amounted to $2.17 billion, or 0.83 per cent of total Indian exports, while imports were 497 million, or 0.13 per cent of total inward shipments.
The major items of Indian export to Pakistan include organic chemicals, vegetables, cotton, plastics and processed food waste, like fodder.
Items of Indian imports from Pakistan include cotton, fruits and nuts, mineral fuels, wax, sulphur, lime, cement and hides.
“Going forward, as things stand today, it is almost no movement seen in the immediate future. Even the symbolic presence of Pakistan exhibitors at the annual India International Trade Fair (IITF) in November in New Delhi is not expected whether or not formal ties are snapped or not, given the present state of affairs,” Rawat said.
Assocham said, “India Inc. is fully behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi for steering India’s interest in the best possible directions.”
“India’s strategic decisions are fully the domain of the government, which enjoys the full backing of the nation,” Rawat added.
“Blood and water cannot flow together,” Modi said at the meeting to review the Indus Water Treaty signed by India and Pakistan in 1960.
It was decided that the meetings of Indus water commissioners, that are held to resolve disputes, will now be held “only in an atmosphere free of terror”.
The meeting also decided review a 1987 decision to stop the construction of the Tulbul barrage on the Jhelum after Pakistan objected that the plan violated the Indus Water Treaty.
India has taken a tough stance against Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism in the country. Ties between the neighbours have nosedived following Islamabad’s open backing of the unrest in Kashmir valley. India has also accused Pakistan-backed terrorists of being behind the September 18 terror attack on the Uri army base in Kashmir that left 18 soldiers dead. (IANS)
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