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Updated: Sep 29, 2016 14:44 IST

India’s efforts to isolate Pakistan on the issue of terrorism got a boost on Wednesday with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan also deciding to skip the Saarc Summit in Islamabad in November, setting the stage for the postponement of the meet.

In a synchronised effort, India and the three other countries informed the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation’s (Saarc) secretariat on Tuesday their leaders would be unable to attend the summit for almost similar reasons.

For India, this marked a victory as half of the grouping’s eight members singled out cross-border terror and interference in the internal affairs of members by “one country” – a clear reference to Pakistan.

The move by the four countries means the summit cannot go ahead as the Saarc Charter states all decisions must be made by unanimity. The absence of even one member state leads to the automatic postponement or cancellation of a summit, said Nepal’s former foreign secretary Madhuraman Acharya.

Read: Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan follow India, pull out of Saarc summit

Nepal’s acting foreign secretary Jhabindra Aryal told Hindustan Times his ministry had received the letters from four member states about their inability to join the summit. A foreign ministry statement said the development was taken “seriously” and Nepal “strongly urges that a conducive environment be created for the (summit) soon by ensuring the participation of all member states”.

A senior Nepalese official said Nepal, as the Saarc chair, did not want the summit to be cancelled and instead wanted member states to find a remedy to regional tensions. “It is also the responsibility of Pakistan to reach out to the member states and make (an effort) to hold the summit,” said the official who didn’t want to be named.

If Pakistan formally announces the cancellation of the summit, the next meet will be held in Sri Lanka according to precedent and Saarc tradition, sources said.

Bangladesh conveyed its decision to current Saarc chair Nepal in a letter that said: “The growing interference in the internal affairs of Bangladesh by one country has created an environment which is not conducive to the successful hosting of the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad in November 2016.

Dhaka has repeatedly complained about Islamabad’s criticism of the trial and conviction of hardliners involved in war crimes during the country’s war of liberation in 1971.

Read: Why pulling out of Saarc meeting will not solve India’s Pakistan problem

Afghanistan, in its communication, said: “Due to increased level of violence and fighting as a result of imposed terrorism on Afghanistan, (President) Ashraf Ghani with his responsibilities as the Commander-in-Chief will be fully engaged, and will not be able to attend the Summit.”

Bhutan referred to the “recent escalation of terrorism in the region” and said this has “seriously compromised the environment for the successful holding” of the summit in Islamabad. Bhutan said it also shared concerns of some member states on the “deterioration of regional peace” because of terror.

In a bid to increase pressure on Pakistan, Indian officials said the Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s headquarter should be shifted from Islamabad. They suggested it could be based anywhere in the region but not Pakistan, where entry for Indians is not easy.

“It is important to focus on pushing trade in the region as this will hugely benefit all the countries involved but whether or not the headquarter should be shifted is at present just speculation,” Naushad Forbes, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, told Hindustan Times.

The Maldives and Sri Lanka were silent on the developments. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Nepal counterpart Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” are expected to visit India soon for the BIMSTEC Summit.

India-Pakistan ties nosedived after the terror attack on an army camp in Uri that killed 18 soldiers. India, which blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed for the strike, had resorted to several non-military measures to counter Pakistan’s use of terror as a state policy, including reviewing the Indus Waters Treaty.

Read: India boycotts Saarc summit: Five finer points in the diplomatic tussle

India and the three other Saarc states have clearly linked regional cooperation to an atmosphere free of terror – meaning Pakistan should stop sponsoring terrorism that is destabilising the region and stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

India’s announcement about skipping the Saarc summit suggested that it wants to extend the issue of an “atmosphere free of terror” from bilateral ties to the entire South Asian region.

New Delhi will also seek help from other members of the BIMSTEC grouping – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka – on terror. The leaders of the grouping will meet in Goa in October.

(With inputs from Mahua Venkatesh)

Read: How the media of Saarc states reacted to summit collapse

First Published: Sep 28, 2016 19:50 IST</s>Nepal is urging South Asian nations to create a ‘conducive environment’ so a regional summit can be held as scheduled in November in Pakistan’s capital.

 Nepal, the current chair of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, said four of the eight member nations have indicated they will not attend the November 9-10 summit in Islamabad.

 Tensions between Pakistan and India have been high since a militant attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir killed 18 Indian soldiers. India announced on Tuesday that it would not participate in the summit.

 Nepal said Thursday that it strongly urges the creation of a conducive environment so all members of the regional grouping can attend.

 The grouping consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan.</s>NEW DELHI, INDIA — Bangladesh pulled out of a regional summit to be held in Islamabad in November, a day after India announced that it would not attend the meeting in the aftermath of a deadly attack on an Indian army base close to Pakistan’s border.

Without naming Pakistan, Junior Foreign Minister Shahriar Alam of Bangladesh said repeated interference in its internal affairs by one country had prompted Dhaka to pull out of the meeting of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation, or SAARC.

Indian media reported that Afghanistan and Bhutan have also said that they will not attend, but there was no confirmation from these countries.

The action is seen as an attempt to send a message to Pakistan about cross-border terrorism, not just in India but also in other countries in the region.

Blaming Pakistan-based Islamic militants for the assault on the army base that killed 18 soldiers, India has cited increasing cross-border attacks as its reason for staying away. Denying any responsibility, Islamabad has called the Indian allegations an attempt to deflect attention from the restive situation in Indian Kashmir.

South Asia expert Sukh Deo Muni, at the Indian Institute of Defense Analyses in New Delhi, said the pullout decision by India and Bangladesh, and likely also by Afghanistan and Bhutan, demonstrates that “Pakistan is at odds with other countries in South Asia besides India.”

He pointed out that while tensions between India and Pakistan spiraled recently, ties between Bangladesh and Islamabad have been frayed for a longer period. Their tensions stem from Islamabad’s criticism of the execution of Islamist leaders in Dhaka for alleged war crimes in the country’s 1971 War of Independence.

Responding to India’s decision to not attend the summit, Pakistan said on Tuesday that it remains committed to peace and regional cooperation and accused New Delhi of perpetrating terrorism on its soil.

SAARC, which was set up in 1985 to promote cooperation in what is one of the world’s least integrated regions, has been constantly overshadowed by the friction between its two biggest members – India and Pakistan.

The other countries in the eight-member group are Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.

Saying that the summit is now unlikely to take place, analyst Muni says the development represents a serious setback to efforts to promote trade and connectivity in South Asia.

Other analysts say India’s push for a boycott came as the government faces enormous domestic pressure to retaliate to the attack on the Indian army camp.

Manoj Joshi at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi says Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has opted for diplomatic measures. “People are angry and they want responses and I think it is better to make this move than to get into any kind of armed conflict,” says Joshi.</s>Region: Bhutan will not participate in the 19th SAARC summit given the deteriorating security situation in the region, according to a foreign affairs press release.

“The Royal Government of Bhutan has expressed its concern to the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, as the current chair of SAARC, that the deteriorating security situation in the region has created an environment which is not conducive for the successful holding of the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad in November 2016,” the press release states.

“Therefore the Royal Government has joined some of the other member states in expressing its inability to participate in the SAARC summit given the current security situation,” it adds.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and India will also not be attending the summit which is scheduled to be held in Pakistan in November.

“As one of the founding members of SAARC, the Royal Government of Bhutan is strongly committed to the SAARC process and strengthening of regional cooperation and is hopeful that the situation would return to normalcy to enable early and successful convening of the 19th SAARC summit,” it is stated in the press release.</s>Nepal on Wednesday ‘strongly urged’ that a conducive environment be created to ensure participation of all members in the next South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Pakistan, after four countries of the regional grouping,, including India, pulled out of the summit indirectly blaming Islamabad.

Nepal said it ‘has received communications' from four member-states -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India -- in which they conveyed their inability to participate in the 19th SAARC summit on November 9-10 stating that the current regional environment is ‘not conducive’ for the successful holding of the summit.

'We have taken this development seriously,' it said in a statement posted on its foreign ministry’s website.

Nepal ‘strongly urges that a conducive environment be created soon to ensure the participation of all member states in the 19th SAARC summit in line with the spirit of the SAARC charter,’ the statement said.

Under the SAARC charter, the summit is automatically postponed or cancelled even if one member country skips the event.

The four countries have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for ‘creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding’ of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after terrorists stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The terrorists belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.</s>KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal urged South Asian nations on Thursday to create a “conducive environment” so a regional summit can be held as scheduled in November in Pakistan’s capital.

Nepal, the current chair of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, said four of the eight member nations have indicated they will not attend the Nov. 9-10 summit in Islamabad.

Tensions between Pakistan and India have been high since a militant attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir killed 18 Indian soldiers. India, which said the militants were from a Pakistan-based group, announced on Tuesday that it would not participate in the summit.

Soon after India’s announcement, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan also said they would not join the summit in Pakistan.

In a statement issued by its foreign ministry, Nepal strongly urged the creation of a conducive environment so all members of the regional grouping could attend.

SAARC, consisting of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, was founded in 1985 to promote economic cooperation in the region, but tensions between India and Pakistan have repeatedly blocked progress.

In announcing it would not attend, India cited increasing terror attacks in the region and blamed “one member” for interfering in the internal affairs of member states. It said the atmosphere was not conducive for a successful summit. It did not name Pakistan directly.

Pakistan accused India on Thursday of impeding SAARC. Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said India’s decision to stay away from the summit was aimed at diverting the attention of the international community from human rights violations in the India-controlled portion of Kashmir.

More than 80 civilians have been killed in Kashmir since July in the largest protests against Indian rule in recent years, sparked by the killing of a popular rebel commander by Indian soldiers.

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.</s>Unfazed by India and three other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member nations deciding not to participate in the grouping's summit in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday said it will go ahead and host the event in November.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan will host the 19th SAARC summit in November, Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.

Zakaria was quoted as saying that it was learnt from the Indian external affairs ministry's tweet that India is not going to participate in the SAARC Summit, a decision he called "unfortunate".

"While we have not received any official communication in this regard, the Indian announcement is unfortunate," he said.

The spokesperson also said Pakistan is committed to regional peace and will continue working for the broader interest of the people of the region, according to the report.

Separately, adviser to prime minister on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said India is making propaganda to foil the conference that was scheduled to be held in November, according to Pakistan Today newspaper.

Besides India, three other SAARC members -- Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan -- have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.</s>New Delhi (AP) — New Delhi will not participate in a meeting of South Asian nations to be held in Islamabad in November, its foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday.

The statement didn’t name Pakistan but tensions between the neighbors and arch-rivals have been high since a militant attack on an army base in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir killed 18 Indian soldiers.

The ministry said it has written to Nepal, the current chair of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, that “increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of Member States by one country” have created an environment that is “not conducive” for a successful summit.

Indian investigators say maps, weapons and other evidence indicated that the attackers were from Jaish-e-Mohammed, an outlawed militant group based in Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charges.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to attend the 8-nation summit in the Pakistani capital. Other member states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In Islamabad, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said while Islamabad had not received any official communication, the Indian announcement was unfortunate. Pakistan, he said, remained committed to peace and regional cooperation.

“As far as the excuse used by India, the world knows that it is India that has been perpetrating and financing terrorism in Pakistan,” Zakaria said.

The SAARC was founded in 1985 to promote economic cooperation in the region, but Indo-Pakistan tensions have blocked its progress.

Since the attack on the base in Indian Kashmir’s Uri town top Indian officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have said they will work to isolate Pakistan internationally, accusing that country of trying to destabilize Asia by exporting terrorism.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both. Most people in the Indian-controlled portion favor independence or a merger with Pakistan. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over control of Kashmir since they won independence from British colonialists in 1947.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training insurgents and pushing them into the Indian portion of Kashmir to attack government forces and other targets. Pakistan says it provides only political and diplomatic support to insurgents who have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989.</s>Four south Asian countries are to boycott what was set to be a historic regional summit in Islamadad in November, dealing a humiliating blow to Pakistan and isolating it diplomatically.

India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan all said they would pull out of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meeting following a collapse in relations between Pakistan and India, the subcontinent’s nuclear-armed rivals.

Statements by the region’s foreign ministries echoed India’s criticism on Tuesday night, which blamed “increasing cross-border terrorist attacks and growing interference of the internal affairs of member states” for Delhi’s decision to boycott the conference.

Until recently, the prospect of the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Islamabad had been seen as a potentially highly symbolic step towards reconciliation between Pakistan and India.

The two countries, however, have been engaged interse exchanges following an attack on an Indian army base on 18 September that killed 19 soldiers, which Delhi has blamed on jihadis based in Pakistan. The raid took place in town of Uri near the line of control that divides the contested Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

Four days later, India denounced Pakistan at the UN as the host of the “Ivy League of terrorism”.

Islamabad says India has provided no evidence linking the attack either to militants based in Pakistan or to the country’s intelligence agencies, which have long been accused of complicity with anti-India jihadi groups.

Pakistan’s defence minister has even suggested that India itself carried out the attack to deflect attention from its ongoing struggle to quell popular disturbances in the Indian part of Kashmir.

Tensions have been fuelled by television networks and social media on both sides of the border, with some pundits appearing to relish the prospect of all-out nuclear war.

Some Indian hawks have demanded retaliatory attacks against suspected militant camps in Pakistan, but Modi has sought to punish Islamabad with steps that fall short of military means.

His strategy is, however, far tougher than the relative restraint shown by previous Indian governments during earlier crises, such as that prompted by the four-day assault on Mumbai by Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2008.

In recent weeks, Modi has publicly backed separatist rebels in the restive Pakistani province of Balochistan, a move that has infuriated Islamabad. He has also questioned a key cross-border river treaty and vowed to orchestrate Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation.

That promise became reality on Wednesday when it became clear four out of SAARC’s eight members would not attend the summit, which it is Pakistan’s turn to host.

Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, which has long accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban-led insurgency, was most stinging in its criticism, denouncing “the increased level of violence and fighting as a result of imposed terrorism on Afghanistan”.

Nine months ago, hopes were high for a rapprochement between India and Pakistan following Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore on Christmas day, the first time an Indian leader had set foot in Pakistan since 2004.

His Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, won a landslide election victory in 2013, determined to end the decades’ long standoff and open up trade.

The two countries have fought three wars over Kashmir since independence and partition in 1947. Both sides occupy half of the Muslim-majority former princedom and claim it in its entirety for themselves.

Historic links across the former British colony have been largely severed. There are just three flights a week connecting Pakistani and Indian cities, and trade between two countries is worth only $3bn (£2.3bn), a negligible figure in relative terms, given their combined population of 1.5 billion.



Many analysts believe Modi’s December visit to Lahore angered Pakistan’s military establishment, which does not share Sharif’s enthusiasm for the rapid normalisation of relations with India.

Delhi initially showed restraint after militants attacked its Pathankot airbase near the border with Pakistan on 2 January. It blamed the Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad, but allowed Pakistani officials to visit the airbase to help with the investigation.

Indian patience has since run out, however, not least because of Islamabad’s lack of action against either Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan’s criticism of India for its security forces’ killing of Burhan Wani, a Kashmiri separatist commander whose death on 8 July has sparked months of civilian protests, has further poisoned relations.

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US and critic of his country’s policies in the region, said it was not surprising that “India was looking to other forms of coercion because they feel frustrated by our behaviour”.

“But Pakistan has a tremendous capacity to withstand coercion and a mindset that wants eternal confrontation with India that is too deeply entrenched,” he said.

On Monday, Modi ordered water officials to step up efforts to divert a greater share of the three rivers the countries share under the Indus treaty, a 1960 agreement that has survived their subsequent conflicts.

“Blood and water cannot flow together,” Modi said, a rare invocation of India’s power to meddle with the Indus river system, which flows downstream into Pakistan and provides water to 65% of the country’s landmass.

Himanshu Thakkar, the coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, said it would take up to a decade to build dams capable of reducing the flow to Pakistan.

“But it sends a signal, and that signal will have an impact,” he said. “If India builds projects to store water from its entitlement, it will provide a means for India to control water flow to Pakistan, even temporarily.”

On Tuesday, Pakistan complained to the World Bank, which brokered the original treaty, urging it to prevent India from starting construction work on the Neelum and Chenab rivers.</s>A key South Asian summit was in doubt Wednesday after India and three other countries pulled out following a deadly attack on an army base that New Delhi blames on a Pakistan-based group.

India has sought to isolate Pakistan in the wake of the raid on its base in the disputed region of Kashmir, which killed 18 soldiers and triggered public fury.

On Tuesday it said Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad in November, in a major snub to its neighbour.

In Islamabad, a senior Pakistani foreign ministry official who declined to be identified said the meeting would be postponed following the four withdrawals.

Without naming Pakistan, India's foreign ministry said "increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country" had created an environment that was not conducive for a meeting.

Hours later, Bangladesh said it was also pulling out. Afghanistan and Bhutan — both close India allies — have since followed suit, according to an official with the Nepali government, current chair of SAARC.

But India's army has blamed Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based militant group that was also implicated in an audacious assault on an Indian air force base in the northern town of Pathankot in January.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, where the two countries regularly exchange fire across the disputed border.

But those hopes were dashed by the Pathankot attack in which seven Indian soldiers died, and peace talks have been on ice ever since.=

Current SAARC chair Nepal said it hoped the issues would be resolved but could not comment on whether the summit would go ahead.

The foreign ministry official in Islamabad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said SAARC officials "will reorganise future dates for the conference". A formal announcement postponing the summit "has to come from the SAARC secretariat and not from us", the official said.

The leaders of the eight SAARC countries — which also include Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives — expressed frustration after the last summit in Kathmandu with the slow pace of progress towards greater regional integration.

"Diplomatically, (it's) maybe not a big deal for Pakistan given that SAARC is widely perceived as ineffective," he said.

Analyst Ashok Malik said the withdrawals would have little practical impact on Pakistan.

"It basically scores a symbolic and a political victory. As for Pakistan, this will push it even closer to China," said Malik, head of the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation's regional studies initiative.

Pakistan said it remained "committed to peace and regional cooperation" and accused India of perpetrating "terrorism" on its soil.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of interference in the southwestern province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is afflicted by Islamist militancy and a separatist insurgency.
Members of the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, scheduled to be held in Pakistan during November 2016, postpone the meeting following a Indian-led boycott, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan in response to Pakistan's alleged involvement in a deadly terrorist attack on a Indian Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, on September 18.