There is a need to revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to boost economic and political cooperation in the region, Bangladesh's former foreign secretary Shamsher M. Chowdhury has told Sputnik India.
SAARC is of "great interest" to the people of South Asia, particularly smaller countries, Chowdhury stated.
The organisation, aimed at advancing political and economic cooperation in the South Asia, includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The last SAARC Summit was held in Nepal in 2014. A scheduled SAARC Summit in Islamabad in 2016 was cancelled following a terrorist attack on an Indian Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.
Since coming to power in Bangladesh, interim government’s Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus has advocated for re-invigorating the regional integration mechanism. In an interview to Indian news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) this month, Yunus called for revival of the "spirit of SAARC" to address regional issues.
SAARC had proven to be a credible platform for reducing tensions between Pakistan and India during "difficult times," Choudhury pointed out, citing moments when the eight-nation regional grouping helped bring both the countries together after Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998 and the Kargil War in 1999.
Chowdhury noted that SAARC has made significant progress since its establishment with the signing of the charter in Dhaka in 1985. He highlighted that the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, signed in 1987, predated the 9/11 attacks, demonstrating SAARC's early recognition of the threat posed by terrorism.
He also mentioned the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme as another exemplary initiative among South Asian nations.
Chowdhury praised New Delhi’s efforts to keep SAARC active despite concerns, particularly noting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to convene a virtual leaders’ conference in 2020 to discuss measures for containing the spread of COVID-19 in the region.
However, a new challenge to reviving SAARC is Afghanistan, as the lack of diplomatic recognition of the Taliban* government poses an obstacle to the group’s activities, Chowdhury suggested.
He further emphasised that it is in the larger interest of South Asia to have both SAARC and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) functioning effectively.
Formed in 1997, BIMSTEC includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The BIMSTEC Charter came into effect in May of this year.
*under UN sanctions