The eighteenth SAARC conference and Afghanistan

The eighteenth conference of SAARC, in which the leaders of the member countries participated, took place in Kathmandu the capital of Nepal, which ended on November 28. Afghanistan is the newestmember of the SAARC, which has acquired membership since the last seven years.

President Ashraf Ghani represented Afghanistan in the conference, in addition to his participation in the conference; he had separate meetings with the heads of the SAARC member countries.

 

Background

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an important economic and geopolitical organization in the region, and it is counted as an important design for the economic cooperation of the Southern Asian Countries. There were three attempts (in 1947, 1950, and 1954) to create this organization; but that time it was impossible to create such an organization; but while Pakistan divided into two countries and Bangladesh got its independence from Pakistan, the Bangladeshi President of the time Ziaulrahman went to India in 1974, he expressed his idea that the Southern Asian countries should be tied trough an economic integration.

That time the attempts of Ziaulrahman faced a warm welcome of the Southern Asian Countries; but Pakistan and India were doubtful about it. India was afraid of the small Southern Asian Countries that may arise against India, while Pakistan was afraid of India’s support from the program that India is going to expand its market in Southern Asian Countries. So India might increase its strength in the region.

With all these issues, finally in 1958 the first conference of SAARC was held, and the dream of the economic ties of the Southern Asian Countries was implemented to some extent.

Afghanistan is located in such a geographical location that some count it as Central Asian country while others count it as Southern Asian and even some counted it as the Middle Eastern country. It was told that time that Afghanistan is not member of the Southern Asian countries, instead it is located in the Central Asia, so it cannot be member of the SAARC; but finally it was decided in the thirteenth conference of SAARC in 2005 that Afghanistan is a Southern Asian country and its membership in SAARC in 2007 in New Delhi SAARC Conference.

 

Members and Observers:

This organization has eight members namely: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal, and there are some countries and organizations like: the U.S, Japan, China, Iran, the European Union, Australia, and South Korea, who are called the observers of this organization. It seems that Myanmar will also get the membership of this organization, and the countries that proposed for the observation of the organization are Turkey, South Africa, and Russia.

 

The Cooperation of SAARC Countries:

• Improvement of the life of the people of the South Asian Countries.
• Social, economic, and cultural development and overall improvement in the region.
• The sovereignty and self-dependency of the South Asian Countries.
• Cooperating with each other in the fields of economic, social, cultural, technological, and scientific fields.
• Empowerment of cooperation with the developing countries.
• Cooperation in the international forums that have shared interests.

As most of the SAARC countries face lack of electricity, and in some of the countries it is a serious issue, so at the last day of the conference there was a relevant agreement signed; but other commercial agreements were not signed because of the existing conflicts between India and Pakistan.

Those agreements are necessity, because the organization is created for the same goals, to link the region with the economic ties, but when there are unpleasant relationship between India and Pakistan, and they are in extreme competition, which might cause the failure of the organization.

 

The Shadow of India-Pakistan over SAARC Conference:

Though to the last few years SAARC was counted as an inactive organization, while Narendra Modibecame Indian Prime Minister, he invited all the leaders of the SAARC countries to his inaugural ceremony, and he also invited the Pakistani Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, so that it will be a message for the reactivation of the inactive organization. Narendra Modi’s attempt faced failure by the Pakistani Prime Minister, when he met with the leaders of Kashmir. The rebuilding relations of the two countries distanced once again, because of the armed conflict in the Indian-Pakistani border, as the result of what the relations of Pakistan and India spread its shadow over the conference.

SAARC is created for economic integration, which most of the times some proposals are rejected because of the competition of India and Pakistan. Since the inauguration of the SAARC the competition of the two neighboring countries was clear, therefore Pakistan did not participate in the SAARC conference of 2012 in India.

As yet the SAARC is not able to shine as the Asian or European Union, the main reason is the complex relations of India and Pakistan. The improvement of SAARC needs friendly relations of India and Pakistan, and with the existence of the rivalry between two countries, SAARC will not be able to achieve its goals.

There were some expectations about signing contracts within the conference, but due to the existing complex relations of India and Pakistan, those contracts were not signed.

 

The Relationship of Afghanistan with the SAARC Countries:

In the eighteenth SAARC conference President Ashraf Ghani was busy with building relationships with the SAARC member countries. He met with the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of Bhutan, the President of Sri Lanka, and the President of Maldives, and he tried to build relationships with them.

The most important one of those meetings was the one with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is reported in Indian media that Modi was listening to President Ghani’s speech carefully, and he was listening the peace and security plan of President Ghani with full attention.

Modi also insured President Ashraf Ghani that India will not let Afghanistan and will cooperate with it, he also invited President Ashraf Ghani to India, and according to some reliable resources the trip will be held at the beginning of the upcoming year.

“We don’t want proxy war in Afghanistan”

Since the 1970s, especially 1990s, Afghanistan became the zone of proxy war between India and Pakistan. In 1990s Pakistan was supporting the Taliban and India was supporting the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Those proxy wars inflamed the civil war of the country, but since 9/11 of 2001 India has a great plan in Afghanistan, and it donated approximately 2 billion dollars to the Afghan government in reconstruction efforts and implemented many projects in the country. Today India has a special respect in Afghanistan.

But in this period of time, Pakistan was in a wiggling mode, it raised the sound of participation of the Taliban in Bon Conference, and it was afraid of the entrance of the Northern Alliances to Kabul, in addition to that it was claiming that it support the President Hamid Karzai’s government.

During Karzai’s regime Afghanistan had complex relationship with Pakistan, and most of the time Kabul was blaming Islamabad for two-face policies; on one hand it promises the Afghan government and on the other hands, it supported the Taliban to overthrow the government of Kabul. Pakistan also had similar doubts about Kabul, that it gave hand to India and intervene in Pakistan, and the doubt reached its peak while Afghanistan signed strategic agreement with India, and Karzai asked India to sell them heavy weaponry. Pakistan was looking toward everything that India is going to increase its power in Afghanistan, and it was afraid of that the India will spread poisons against Pakistan in Afghanistan.

With the victory of Ashraf Ghani, both the countries predicted that it is the time to rebuild their relationships; but with the return of Ashraf Ghani to Kabul, the foreign affair advisor of Pakistan Sartaj Aziz has expressed issues that caused doubt about a new two-face policy of Pakistan toward Afghanistan; though he clarified his expressions later on.

After the expressions of Sartaj Aziz, the ex-Pakistani President Parwez Musharraf said that with the exit of the foreign forces from Afghanistan, a proxy war will start there. In reaction to his speech, firstly former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai said that Kabul will not allow that the Afghan land to become the spot of the proxy war between India and Pakistan.

But, though President Ashraf Ghani reacted lately, but it was a proper place for his reaction to Parwez Musharraf’s speech, because the Prime Ministers of both the countries (India and Pakistan) were there. In the SAARC, he directly pointed to Pakistan and India and said that Afghanistan will not only does not allow the neighboring countries to use Afghan land against each other, but will not allow any country to use the Afghan land for starting a proxy war.

The End