A parliamentary delegation from Pakistan, which is now in New York is supposed to have pitched this idea during its five-day visit to Washington last week, a report in the Dawn said.
The nerve-wrecking diplomatic war between India and Pakistan continues unabated, with both countries working hard to partition the SAARC regional grouping. Peeved at the failure to host the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan has for the first time openly floated the idea of a greater South Asian economic alliance to include China, Iran and Central Asian nations to counter India's influence. India is unlikely to accept the offer as its plays a pivot in South Asia. It has successfully used this position recently to isolate Pakistan in the region.
Using its diplomatic prowess, the Modi government recently convinced members, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan to side with it by staying away from the Islamabad summit to protest against the host country's continued support to terrorist activities and non-state actors. Also, India has, for long now, set its sights on the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) grouping, that includes Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal, a move to counter non-functioning of the SAARC.
Debunking Pakistan's plans for a greater SAARC, officials here described them as nothing more than Islamabad's "survival tactics" to divert attention from its global isolation. "Pakistan's credibility has taken a huge beating because of its use of terror as state policy. Afghanistan and Iran have their own issues with Islamabad and same is with Central Asian nations too," they said.
Experts here say the SAARC had never been a particularly vibrant regional forum to deliver results, keeping in view the relations between India and Pakistan, who have made the grouping hostage to their rivalries and animosity. China is one of the observer countries in SAARC along with others such as the US, the EU, Japan, Australia, Iran and South Korea.
At the 18th summit in Kathmandu in 2014, Pakistan and the host Nepal were trying to convince countries behind the scenes to allow Beijing to become a full-fledged member of the grouping. At this Summit, India was all but isolated in its opposition to China, with the declaration explicitly committing "to engage SAARC observers into productive, demand-driven, and objective project-based cooperation in priority areas identified by member-states".
A parliamentary delegation from Pakistan, which is now in New York is supposed to have pitched this idea during its five-day visit to Washington last week, a report in the Dawn said.
"A greater South Asia is already emerging," Pakistani Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed was quoted as saying in one of his interactions with the media. He described the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, as the key economic route linking South Asia with Central Asia. Recently, Afghanistan and Iran have also expressed desire to be part of the corridor. Senator, who has played a key part in convincing the then president General Zia-ul-haq to participate in the SAARC in 1983, said the Gwadar port, was the nearest warm water port, not only for China but also for the land-locked Central Asian states.
In the current dynamics, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan have emerged as strong allies of India. Though the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have good ties with Pakistan, they don't want to annoy India at the moment.
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