Hyderabad:Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a sudden tweet urged for a South Asian regional strategy to tackle Coronavirus challenges, top leaders from eight SAARC member countries today participated in an India led video conferencing initiative.
Heads of governments (PMs) and heads of states (Presidents) of all SAARC members were present in the hour and a half long video conferencing led by PM Modi except Pakistan which was represented by its junior Health Minister Zafar Mirza as a special envoy of PM Imran Khan.
The proposal first initiated on Friday evening saw an acceptance within an hour or two from regional leaders, with sources saying further contours were offered by India on Saturday evening and the high-level video conferencing fructified on Sunday.
A senior official source underlined that while some 150 positive cases have only been reported so far for Coronavirus in the otherwise densely populated SAARC region which is very less compared to tens of thousands in China and Italy each, the region needs to be vigilant and it is better to ‘act with some foresight rather than leave it to consequences’.
“In the regional context first and foremost the idea was we were reaching out to neighbours for some common understanding as we have common borders, porous borders, similar conditions. It was important to have some level of cooperation,” said the official.
The source pointed out to the fact that each country in the SAARC region has a different problem in the Covid19 context- be it smaller nation like the Maldives with inadequate resources or countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal that receive large number of tourists from Italy and China to Afghanistan which shares its borders with China. The need to develop some level of cooperation and come up with a collective response was felt imperative even though SAARC has been on a back burner for some time now, added sources.
However, it is too premature to talk of any revival of the SAARC political process which saw an India led boycott in the wake of the URI terror strikes in 2016 when Pakistan was to host the summit meeting and since then has been in deep freeze.
Sources said that Pakistan was receptive and positive in its initial response to the Indian proposal and later decided that Imran Khan would not be a part of the video conference meeting.
This at a time when even Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli decided to join the online deliberations just a day after his discharge from hospital following a serious surgery.
Sources called the Pakistani representative raising the Kashmir bogey after he was handed over a note towards the end of his remarks during the video conferencing as ‘churlish’ and ‘unwarranted’.
“Our friends have tried to politicise a humanitarian initiative,” said a senior official.
“It is too premature to talk about the revival of SAARC. All we are talking about is an initiative that has brought together leaders of the SAARC region to deal with an emerging situation. One that is serious enough to warrant our meeting in this manner. Whether it will lead to some other regional initiatives is something we cannot comment on one way or the other. Pakistan’s comment does not merit a reaction. Just showed them for what they are,” added the source.
India has so far evacuated 1444 of its nationals from different parts of the world in the wake of the Covid19 outbreak including 766 from China,124 from Japan, 336 from Iran and 218 from Italy. While the government does not intend to evacuate affected patients and let them remain where they are to stop virus from further spreading, some evacuations are still being planned for Indians who have tested negative from Italy and Iran where resources are already stretched for native populations and there is a serious dearth of medical facilities.
Also, a special cell in the MEA working round the clock under Additional Secretary and Coordinator for Covid19, Dammu Ravi will take a humanitarian view of young Indian students stuck in countries where schools and colleges have shut down and they cannot even stay in closed down hostels. In the SAARC regional context, India has announced setting up a SAARC pandemic fund with an initial contribution of 10 million USD and offered medical research to rapid response teams to be sent upon request of neighbours.
Further coordinated action will be taken through the SAARC foreign secretaries and missions following Sunday’s summit video conferencing. India rushed a medical rapid response team to Maldives within 48 hours of request and is also considering some humanitarian requests made by Iran said sources. “We have not quite deliberately proposed a structure for the pandemic fund. The idea is to make it as effective as possible, as rapidly implementable as possible,” said a government official.
India will also possibly propose a SAARC link up to G20 strategy to fight the global pandemic through a similar online mechanism added sources.
Also read: Pak Raising Kashmir in SAARC Meet Unwarranted: Sources
