Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Friday known as for the revival of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, throughout his handle on the United Nations General Assembly.
Established in 1985, SAARC is an intergovernmental organisation of eight South Asian international locations: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan.
However, the grouping has been inactive for nearly a decade due to tensions between India and Pakistan. Its final biennial summit was in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2014.
The 2016 summit was scheduled to be held in Islamabad however was cancelled after India withdrew following the Uri terror assault in Jammu and Kashmir. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan had additionally declined to take part.
On Friday, Yunus stated in his handle that there is no such thing as a various to regional cooperation amongst neighbours apart from shared growth.
He added that SAARC had made notable progress in its early years and had laid a robust basis for regional collaboration.
He stated that regardless of political impasse, the grouping’s institutional construction had remained intact.
“We consider SAARC nonetheless holds the potential to ship welfare to the tons of of tens of millions in our area,” Yunus stated.
This got here days after his assembly on Tuesday with Sergio Gor, the United States’ particular envoy for South and Central Asia and ambassador-designate to India, the place Yunus stated Bangladesh had “intensified” efforts to revive the grouping, The Hindu reported.
He had described SAARC members as “shut household” and added that “the entire thought of SAARC was born in Bangladesh”.
“We promoted this concept from capital to capital within the South Asian area, selling SAARC,” The Hindu quoted Yunus as saying on Tuesday.
“Our historical past offers us the chance however in some way it didn’t match into the politics of 1 nation,” Yunus was quoted as saying in an obvious reference to India. “We really feel very sorry for that.”
Yunus, a Nobel laureate economist, took over as chief adviser of Bangladesh’s interim authorities three days after Sheikh Hasina resigned because the prime minister and fled to India in August 2024. Hasina fled after a number of weeks of widespread student-led protests towards her Awami League authorities.
She was ousted from energy after being the prime minister of Bangladesh for 16 years.
Bangladesh’s relations with India have deteriorated following the change in authorities in Dhaka.
New Delhi is broadly thought of to have considered Hasina’s management as extra beneficial to its strategic pursuits.
