By Our Reporter

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli held a one-on-one meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi after concluding the 6th BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok on April 3, but there is no report about any talks related to the resumption of the SAARC Summit.

Nepal has been chairing SAARC since 2014 after hosting the 18th Summit in Kathmandu. The 19th Summit was scheduled to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan, however, due to the Indian obstruction, the Summit has been stalled. It has been already more than one decade, yet, there is no sign of holding the Summit in the near future.

Nepal should have made special efforts to resume the Summit as the chair but we don’t see any development on it.

In the past, Nepal had made efforts to organize a mini-SAARC meeting at the sideline of the UN General Assembly. This year, such efforts have not been made.

The Summit was suspended due to the India-Pakistan dispute, nevertheless, the organization for regional cooperation should not become the hostage of the two countries’ dispute. The member countries could move forward the organization for regional cooperation even by keeping the ongoing disputes aside. When India and China have decided to move forward with bilateral relations by keeping aside all disputes including the border disputes, why cannot the SAARC be moved forward, Nepal should take the issue seriously.

We know that India, which believes a regional power, wants to promote BIMSTEC by sidelining SAARC but all the SAARC member countries have spent a lot of time in promoting SAARC, therefore, this organization should also move forward avoiding any effort for its demise.