Greetings to Summiteers
We wistfully look forward to the tri-nation summit beginning in the city today to break new grounds in the business relationship among the three subcontinental neighbours - India, Pakistan and host Bangladesh. It is the maiden major meeting of such kind within the SAARC region. It is our sincere hope that in the reassuring presence of Inder Kumar Gujral, Mian Nawaz Sharif and Sheikh Hasina the powerful business delegations of the three countries will do something worth their while to help the much vaunted notion of regional cooperation descend on reality from the realms of rhetoric. We want to see this summit go down in the history as some sort of sign post in effective explorative exercise in economic cooperation.
There is no denying that Indo-Pak relationship is the key to greater economic cooperation in this region. Any attempt to bypass this reality is bound to make all efforts ineffectual as it has been the case in the past. But at the centre of improvement in their bilateral relationship lies the Kashmir issue. It has not only vitiated the relationship of the two countries in the last 50 years but has also greatly chipped away from the economic potential of the region. It gladdens our hearts immensely that both Mr. Gujral and Sharif seem to have grasped this reality better than any of their predecessors. We hope today they begin from where they had left off in Washington.
Our hopes around this summit border on robust optimism because it is a whole new atmosphere that all the characters will be playing their role in. As the largest economy in South Asia, we expect India to give momentum to the whole idea of regional cooperation. Ideally it will be a leadership that will not limit itself to the narrow idea of self gain but will open up for smaller economies like ours to pull our weight in the regional approach to meet the millennial challenges. To tap each other's resources Pakistan will have to come up with new vision because in words and actions Bangladesh has shown its preparedness.
There was a time when this economic cooperation was a matter of choice. No more. The world is fast pacing away from this region to reach new peaks of economic prosperity. We have to cooperate with each other for survival.
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