Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: India and Bangladesh are likely to send their respective presidents to Pakistan to attend the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit scheduled for November 9 and 10.

India is likely to send President Pranab Mukherjee, while Bangladesh is thinking about sending President Abdul Hamid in case Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina does not come.

Diplomatic sources informed Daily Times that Bangladesh, through its diplomatic channels, conveyed to Pakistan that they would participate in the upcoming summit in Islamabad.

Sources close to the Indo-Pakistan developments also said that if Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not attend, President Mukherjee would represent his country in the moot.

According to the SAARC charter, the heads of the state or government shall meet once a year or more often as and when considered necessary by the member states.

Former Pakistani high commissioner to India Aziz Ahmad Khan told Daily Times that there were bright chances that venue for the SAARC summit would not be changed.

He said that SAARC was an important regional organisation, carrying huge potential for economic and social development.

He said that all member sates of the organisation could improve its capacity for further development of the region.

The SAARC charter is desirous of promoting peace, stability, amity and progress in the region through strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations charter and non-alignment, particularly respect for the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, national independence, non-use of force and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and peaceful settlement of all disputes.

One of its main objectives is to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potentials.

The last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, from November 26 to 27 in 2014.

Pakistan hosted the summit for the first time in 1988, from December 29 to 31, when late Benazir Bhutto was the prime minister. The country last hosted it in 2004 from January 2 to 6 when Zafarullah Khan Jamali was the prime minister and military dictator Pervez Musharraf was president.

Indian participation in the summit got cloudy when Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh traded barbs at the SAARC Interior Ministers’ Conference earlier this month.

Bangladeshi Interior Minister did not participate in the meeting, and the delegation was led by Bangladeshi High Commissioner to Pakistan Tarik Ahsan.

Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also did not attend the SAARC Finance Ministers’ meeting, which was held in Islamabad on August 26.

In the meeting, the Indian delegation was led by Shakti Kanta Das, the Indian economic affairs secretary. The Afghan finance minister also remained absent, so Ambassador to Pakistan Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal represented his country.

Later, Pakistan invited India for secretary-level talks on Kashmir issue. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry invited his counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, but India refused to hold talks on the issue.

India, while rejecting the offer to discuss the dispute, had said that it could only discuss “cross-border terrorism”, as it considered it to be central to the situation in Kashmir.

Jaishankar had further written to Aizaz Chaudhry that the “agenda before India and Pakistan today is clearly to put an end to cross-border terrorism and incitement to violence from Pakistan”.

The spokesman said that the basis for any further discussions would be the Shimla Agreement of 1972, the Lahore Declaration of 1999 and the Joint Statement of 2004.