Pushing ahead the decision on convening the 19^th SAARC Summit, Gyawali urged India and Pakistan to resolve issues and facilitate ways for conducting the Summit at the earliest possible.

Gyawali raised this issue of long-stalled 19^th SAARC Summit with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj during his recent two-day visit to India.

Gyawali has reportedly made it clear that Nepal, as a SAARC’s current Chair, is not willing to make any further delays in conducting the Summit.

Talking to Indian journalists, Gyawali questioned as to why the two countries could not sit and address the pending issues.

“Nepal is always in favor of broader regional and meaningful cooperation. There is no alternative to sitting together for talks and finding solutions to the problems. If [Donald] Trump and Kim [Jong-un] can meet, then why not countries in our region?” reads Gyawali’s statement.

The 19^th SAARC Summit due in 2016 has been cancelled after New Delhi rejected Pakistan’s invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the SAARC event in Islamabad.

The Background

Paving way for the stalled 19^th SAARC summit, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli met Pakistan’s former PM Yousaf Raza Gillani on December 02, 2018.

This discussion took place on the side-lines of Gillani’s Kathmandu visit for the Asia Pacific Summit 2018.

During the meeting, Oli expressed his intention to make South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) effective and get the SAARC summit to commence at the earliest.

“We want to see the SAARC summit convening and handover the chairmanship at the earliest,” read the press statement issued by the Nepal PM Secretariat.

Oli opines that it is high time that the SAARC summit ’s 19^th edition is hosted. The important summit postponement in November 2016 over India-Pakistan indifferences.

In November 2016, Pakistan was supposed to host the summit. However, the meet was cancelled when SAARC nations such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India boycotted stating that they lacked a friendly environment for holding the summit.

Pakistan was held responsible for promoting terrorism, a claim which Pakistan strongly denied.

Following the row, Nepal has been patiently waiting to handover chair to Pakistan and making significant efforts to hold the summit’s next edition there.

According to Nepal PM’s Foreign Affairs Advisor Rajan Bhattarai, Gillani expressed’s commitment to SAARC and its readiness to host the summit.

Besides the SAARC discussion, Oli and Gilani also spoke about strengthening trade and investment among South Asian countries.

Gilani also appreciated Nepal for its efforts on achieving political stability and progress.

Reviving 19th SAARC Summit

Days after the successful 4^th BIMSTEC Summit, Former Nepali PM and Chairman of ruling Communist Party of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) said Nepal was keen on taking ahead the SAARC Summit in its next move.

Prachanda made these sensational statements on the side-lines of his four-day bilateral visit to India in the last week concluding on September 09, 2018.

As part of his four-day visit that he called ‘productive’, the former Nepali PM reportedly expressed his government’s commitment to revive the stalled 19^th SAARC Summit at the earliest possible.

Ruling out misconceptions over BIMSTEC as replacement to SAARC, Prachanda said on September 07, 2018 that SAARC and BIMSTEC support each other and are not substitutes to one another.

“Some of India’s neighbours are jealous about the progress of BIMSTEC. SAARC is not an alternative to BIMSTEC. India has to improve its diplomatic outreach in Nepal backed by timely implementation of bilateral and BBIN projects,” says an expert who closely followed BIMSTEC.

Prachanda had informed that the Pakistan Government already urged India for its decision on rescheduling of the SAARC Summit.

Explaining more on his India visit, Prachanda informed that they discussed various key issues pertaining to Indo-Nepal bilateral ties and the region.

“It is rare to have long discussions with top leaders during bilateral meetings but this time it was a good opportunity for me. I had a discussion with PM Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders on various issues related to the two countries. This has given a very positive message to both countries,” said Prachanda.

Speaking to Nepali media on his return, Prachanda said they also discussed on past leadership agreements agreed upon by India and Nepal along with issues pertaining to trade deficit, cross-border and post-quake reconstruction.

Revival of SAARC gains significance in view of the 4^th BIMSTEC Summit that reportedly addressed some of the key issues that SAARC couldn’t.

Will have to wait to see what the latest Nepal-India bilateral discussions will lead to pertaining to further actions on the 19^th SAARC Summit that was supposed to take place on November 2016 and got postponed due to some reasons.

Nepal is currently the SAARC Chair, which will be handed over to Pakistan in the 19^th SAARC Summit.

Also Read:

• New SAARC Center To Boost Nepali Handicrafts
• Nepal, Pakistan Seek Strong SAARC, Sector-wise Cooperation

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The two-day event (March 25-26, 2018) was inaugurated by the Chairman of Federal Socialist Party Nepal Upendra Yadav and jointly organized by the Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) and the Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung. 

In his inaugural address, Yadav stressed on the need for revival of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) activities for achieving the aforementioned targets and said South Asia has a vital role in shaping the New World Order.

The CASAS Nepal Director Nishchalnath Pandey also pitched on the need for increased cooperation among the South Asian countries.

The conference is hosting experts and eminent personalities from eight South Asian countries including India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan for a wide range of discussions on issues related to regional cooperation and beyond that.

Reasons that led to the derailment of SAARC process is one of the key discussions to be made at the event.

Strengthening SAARC, Need of the Hour

There has been a lot of discussion among South Asian countries around this particular matter of strengthening South Asia for the overall regional development.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has also reiterated the same in his recent two-day visit to Nepal, wherein, he had termed Nepal’s support as vital for strengthening SAARC.

In this regard, he had also sought Nepal’s full-fledged support to host the upcoming 19^th SAARC Summit, which was initially planned in Pakistan but couldn’t move forward due to some issues.

Now, the move is expected to take a positive turn following the Pakistan premier’s aforementioned visit to Nepal.

On a similar occasion, SAARC Chamber President Suraj Vaidya had also opined that Abbasi’s recent visit would also boost regional trade and business cooperation.

Suraj had also urged SAARC to have a special focus on poverty alleviation and improvement of trade, commerce and health sectors, among others.

Towards strengthening SAARC, Nepal has hosted various SAARC conferences in the recent times which include 10th South Asia Economic Summit in November 2017, South Asia Religious Leaders’ Platform for Children in September 2017, South Asian Women’s Conference in August 2017, among others.

Nepal, Key for South Asia

As a strong SAARC supporter since its inception in 1985, Nepal has been playing a very important role in any development related to SAARC.

The World Economic Forum (WEF), in its Inclusive Development Index (IDI) 2018 in South Asia report, positioned Nepal at the top of other South Asian nations.

The WB report that studied inclusive growth of 103 world economies in terms of growth, inclusion, and inter-generational equity positioned Nepal at the 22^nd position among 74 countries, placing it at the top of South Asia.

In this report, India was seen at the 62^nd position preceded by Pakistan at the 47^th place (with an improvement over the previous year), Bangladesh and Sri Lanka at 34^th and 40^th positions graduating from 36 and 39 positions, respectively over the previous year.

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