Indian conspiracy succeeds as Saarc summit postponed

ISLAMABAD/KATHMANDU: The Indian conspiracy proved a success as the Saarc summit scheduled to take place in Islamabad on November 9 and 10 has been postponed, officials confirmed on Wednesday, after India and three other countries pulled out of the key South Asian summit.

The announcement came as Nepal said the summit could not be held even if a single country decided against attending the event.Earlier, Nepal had said it hoped the issues would be resolved but could not comment on whether the summit would go ahead. “The host will take decisions regarding the summit,” said Jhabindra Aryal, joint secretary with Nepal’s foreign ministry.

On the other hand, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Secretariat had not yet informed officially about the postponement of the conference. He, however, said the chances were that the conference would be postponed. “Whenever the conference takes place, it will be held in Pakistan.”

He added it was not the first time that India was not attending the regional summit, as it had previously postponed it four times.Sartaj said “even if one member pulls out, the conference cannot go on as per schedule.”

Earlier, officials in Kathmandu said the Saarc summit might be called off, as several countries had decided not to attend amid the rising tension between archrivals India and Pakistan.Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India have expressed their “inability” to attend the have expressed their "inability" to attend the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), a senior foreign ministry official in Nepal said.

India’s foreign ministry on Tuesday announced its decision to skip the meeting, saying "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.

India has blamed Pakistan for a deadly assault this month on an army base in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir that has heightened fears of a new conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan, which rejects the accusations, called India’s move to pull out of the Saarc summit "unfortunate". A Bangladesh foreign ministry official said Dhaka had told Nepal it would not attend because of Pakistan’s interference in its internal affairs.

The two countries have been in a diplomatic spat over executions by Bangladesh of people convicted of crimes during its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Junior foreign affairs minister Mohammad Shahriar Alam said Dhaka had told Pakistan, which is chairing the meeting, of its "inability to attend the summit due to our engagements".

Rishi Adhikari, the foreign affairs adviser to Nepal’s prime minister, said the Himalayan nation’s government would discuss the matter with Saarc members so that there was "no long-term effect" on the regional grouping.

Pakistan said it remained "committed to peace and regional cooperation" and accused India of perpetrating "terrorism" on its soil. "As for the excuse used by India, the world knows that it is India that has been perpetrating and financing terrorism in Pakistan," tweeted foreign ministry spokesman Nafees Zakariya late Tuesday, citing the capture of an Indian intelligence officer in Balochistan earlier this year.