India is now focusing on strengthening the Bay of Bengal Initiative, or BIMSTEC, taking all the members of the South Asian grouping, SAARC, except Pakistan, on board in an effort to isolate Islamabad from the region.
Pakistan is being seen as the main stumbling block to the success of the SAARC process.
“Forget SAARC at least for the time being,” Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, distinguished fellow of the leading private think-tank, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), on Monday told a group of Bangladesh journalists who are visiting New Delhi at the invitation of the Ministry of External Affairs,.
“I would urge Bangladesh to concentrate on BIMSTEC,” Chakravarty, who was India’s high commissioner in Bangladesh from 2007-09, said. The BIMSTEC is headquartered in Dhaka.
His comment came amid the postponement of the 19th SAARC summit, which was scheduled to be held next month in Islamabad, after most of the member states including Bangladesh refused to attend it following the ‘Pakistan-sponsored’ terrorist attack on the Indian army in Kashmir.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made it clear that Bangladesh is standing by India “firmly” at this “difficult” time.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka are the members of the three-decade-old SAARC grouping of South Asia, which is known as the least integrated region.
Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan are the members of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
Chakravarty said they would take Afghanistan and the Maldives from the SAARC as observer of the BIMSTEC.
He said Pakistan had not changed its behaviour over the years, even with Bangladesh, referring to the interference in Bangladesh’s internal issues such as war crimes trial.
“In the next few years Pakistan will be shut out of the SAARC. We have to be practical. One day Pakistan will realise the benefits of cooperation.”
“We have to go ahead with the BIMSTEC, and also with the BBIN” that connects Bangladesh and India with Nepal and Bhutan, the former senior diplomat added.
“Every country has an army, but in Pakistan, the army has a country. We have to deal with them differently,” he said.
In the BIMSTEC, Myanmar and Thailand are the Southeast Asian countries, so strengthening the process would open “a new avenue of cooperation” with that region for Bangladesh, the former ambassador said.
“We can also have bilateral or trilateral cooperation in the Bay of Bengal.”
But since Bangladesh-Myanmar relations suffer due to Rohingya refugee issue, he said, the relations should begin with the soft issues.
“Bangladesh should start engagements with the issues in which Myanmar has interests,” Chakravarty said, adding that India had also taken the same policy at the beginning to infuse confidence in the relations.
He, however, suggested that Bangladesh stay clear of the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan.
“The best is stay out of it,” he said, replying to a question.
source: bdnews24
