Comment:

India, Pakistan and the Shanghai spirit

by Tanvir Ahmad Khan

* The SCO embodies many of the principles that India invoked in writing resounding declarations with Moscow. But now that the SCO is poised to go far beyond the pieties of anti-terrorism and anti-separatism and demarcate a part of the globe that would have nearly half the world population and a large portion of its known energy resources, it is beginning to act coy*

India and Pakistan have been engaged in an uninterrupted multi-level and multi-dimensional dialogue for nearly three years. Opinions would vary, perhaps sharply, on what has been achieved so far and what still defies meaningful progress.

The glass may be seen as half-full or half- empty. But even a rudimentary analysis of the situation would show that multilateral diplomacy, especially in regional organisations, offers opportunities to narrow down differences on many issues and discover perfectly negotiable paths for pursuing common interests.

Such a discovery would doubtless impact favourably on the onerous effort in the so-called secret channels reportedly grappling with proposals to resolve difficult bilateral issues.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) certainly provides one forum where the two sub-continental powers could put aside zero-sum games and pool their creative resources, as indeed, talent to strengthen the six-nation grouping to their common advantage.

The just concluded summit marked the 5th anniversary of the original Shanghai Five transforming themselves into an organisation that has now Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as members with India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia as observers. All of them except India participated at the level of the head of state. Afghanistan, a strategic neighbour, which does not as yet have even an observer-status, was present at the summit as a special guest in the person of President Karzai. India was, however, represented by its petroleum minister.

Viewed from energy-starved South Asia which has a particularly high stake in energy-related diplomacy and which may, as a region, also benefit from a multi-polar world order, the situation at the summit was ironic. Over the years Pakistan has accumulated much frustration as its ambitious Central Asia policy was constrained by disorder in Afghanistan. At the conceptual level, Pakistan had to overcome a wall of distrust with Russia and perhaps smaller obstacles with the fellow Muslim states on the other side of the Oxus.

But the last two summits of SCO engaged Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and President Musharraf personally and Pakistan went to the fifth summit with an intensely argued brief for full membership on the basis of great dividends for itself as well as the organisation.

* The writer is a former foreign secretary who can be contacted at [email protected]