DHAKA: It?s India versus the rest ? and the battle of wits is raging in Dhaka. By nightfall on the first day of the Saarc summit, the leaders of the seven-member organisation had failed to reach an agreement on inducting Afghanistan and China as member and observer in the regional body.
At the end of hectic negotiations, the wrangling resulted in a stalemate: India blocked China?s entry, Nepal said it would block Afghanistan?s admission if India did not allow in China, and as a result the issue remained at a standstill. The leaders will now try and break the stalemate on the final day of the summit.
"Nepal has really dug its heels in against India," said an official who sat in the meetings. Given that Saarc decisions are based on consensus, Nepal has taken a position that if China?s request for observer status or dialogue partner were not accepted, nobody would be inducted into the organisation.
The issue also figured in the bilateral meeting between Prime Ministers Shaukat Aziz and Manmohan Singh Saturday. According to an insider, when Pakistan asked the Indians to reconsider their opposition to China?s entry, Indians responded by saying that other countries like Japan and US were also interested in some sort of role in Saarc and if China was inducted, then they would not be able to justify a refusal to other countries.
To this, senior Pakistani officials said they had no problems with the United States coming into Saarc. "After all both China and US are our strategic partners," said the insider. Prior to the official negotiations at Dhaka, there was a general impression that Afghanistan?s case for entry into Saarc would sail through. All seven-member states had agreed informally to let in the new applicant, thereby raising the number of member states to eight.
Pakistan and India both supported Afghanistan?s request, which provided for a rare occasion where Islamabad and New Delhi were on the same side in a multilateral setting. The China factor changed everything. "An agreement could take place on Sunday, but that would be a surprise," said the official who participated in the meetings.
The leaders will get an opportunity to discuss this and other issues in an informal setting today when they meet at a retreat in the afternoon. Another senior official said his guess was that the issue of Afghanistan and China would be referred to the next summit in New Delhi.
He said the leaders may agree on some conciliatory language for the final declaration, which may state that all efforts would be made to set proper guidelines for inducting new members and observers by the next summit.
Officials say India is now on the defensive since all the other members are in support of allowing in both China and Afghanistan. India is under pressure because due to its opposition to China, Afghanistan may also end up staying out, despite the fact that there is a complete consensus within Saarc about bringing it in as the eighth member.
Officials say Nepal has stuck to its guns in favour of China, and it is highly unlikely that it will budge. The support from the other five countries, including Pakistan, has consolidated Nepal?s position, and India now faces the prospects of taking the blame for scuttling the entire issue.
The King of Nepal also took swipes at India in his speech at the inaugural session of the summit, and it is well known among the delegates and media gathered here in Dhaka that Nepal is not making any great efforts to hide its irritation with India.
However, officials are still hoping that some breakthrough may be achieved today. "Look at the bright side," said a senior Pakistani official, "Saarc has become so high profile that countries like China, US and Japan are now wanting to get involved."
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