India aims to reconfigure several regional groupings at Goa summits on Oct 15-16
After Pakistan withheld support for a road project for connecting the South Asian countries during the last Saarc Summit in Nepal in 2014, BBIN went ahead and signed the Motor Vehicles Agreement that would allow cross-border road traffic among the member nations.
Besides, leading Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is advocating a Bangladesh-India-Myanmar platform which it believes holds massive development potentials.
“We have settled maritime boundary, and Bangladesh, Myanmar and India could work in a tri-lateral way to explore energy in the Bay of Bengal. We can share our resources to explore energy and all the three countries would be benefited,” ORF went on record as saying.
Bangladesh, India and Myanmar can expand a pipeline to share petroleum resources, it says.
New Delhi is also actively working on finding ways to accommodate the Maldives and Afghanistan, two neighbouring countries who are not members of either BIMSTEC or BBIN.
Then, there is the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation programme (SASEC), comprised of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, which was established in 2001. It was only a few days back that SASEC released its plan of action for the first time. It’s Operational Plan 2016-2025 contains details of trade, transport and energy projects worth billions of dollars.
This strategy is driven not only by Pakistan turning a blind eye to terrorism, but also by impeding progress on other fronts such as trade, energy, and road connectivity in the region for decades.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that the failure of the regional grouping to deliver “acceptable results” for all members would spell a “bleak future” and compel his country to find other “viable options”. He, however, did not elaborate on the “options.”
Wickremesinghe was delivering a special speech at the New Zealand Parliament House on October 3.
Diplomatic sources said BRICS leaders will meet BIMSTEC leaders in Goa, making it the first time the engagement is held outside New Delhi, when India is to use the assembly of the world leaders to once again underscore the need for stepping up counterterrorism cooperation among the countries in the region.
“The upcoming outreach summit would not only be an opportunity to deepen ties with ourselves, we will also interact with India’s neighbouring countries of BIMSTEC,” said an Indian diplomat in New Delhi.
Besides, he said, the two back-to-back summits would be an opportunity not for India only because the BIMSTEC leaders will also be able to interact with BRICS nations’ leaders.
The 11 participating leaders are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi.
Source: The Daily Star
