The Hindu : No progress in Kathmandu round of SAPTA talks: India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 03, 2002

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No progress in Kathmandu round of SAPTA talks: India

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Nov. 2. India today said that the final meeting of the fourth round of discussions under the South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA) in Kathmandu had not made any headway on account of the attitude adopted by Pakistan.

As India has previously linked economic progress under the SAARC umbrella to the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee's travelling to Islamabad for its summit in January, the remarks made by the Foreign Office spokesman assume importance.

Briefing presspersons, the spokesman said that at the October 30-November 1 meeting, Pakistan offered 250 items for tariff concession, but of these 146 were found to be on the "negative list" for trade with India.

This, he said, was nothing but a reflection of Islamabad's "duplicitous double standards" towards SAARC and the future of regional economic cooperation.

Referring to the situation prevailing earlier, he maintained that of the 248 items offered by Pakistan up till the third round, 73 were on the "negative list" for trade with India. In all, he claimed that of the 5,500 items placed on the concessional list under the SAPTA framework, as many as 3,000 had been offered by India.

According to him, the deliberations in Kathmandu revealed that Pakistan was offering "tokenism" as a substitute for substance. India, however, was prepared to have more engagement with Pakistan on economic issues.

If Pakistan had provided a meaningful list, then progress could have been made at the meeting.

It may be recalled that the SAARC summit meeting in January as well as the Foreign Ministers' session in August had called for speedy progress not just under SAPTA, but also in moving towards SAFTA.

There appears to be little doubt that Pakistan has provided India with a first-class excuse if New Delhi were to decide against the Prime Minister travelling to Islamabad.

Asked if there was any "deadline" for India to respond to the dates proposed by Pakistan for the SAARC summit in Islamabad, the spokesman said no deadlines applied to such things.

In a separate development, he said the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) decision to keep Pakistan suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth was a "welcome decision".

It was welcome because it showed that the Commonwealth and the international community wanted the return of true democracy — as opposed to a caricature — in Pakistan.

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