The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in 1985 at the first SAARC Summit held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. SAARC comprises of seven countries of South Asia, i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SAARC is a manifestation of the determination of the peoples of South Asia to work together towards finding solutions to their common problems in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding and to create an order based on mutual respect, equality and shared benefits. SAARC’s main goal is to accelerate economic and social development in member states through joint action in certain agreed areas of cooperation.

The eleventh South Asian Association for Regional cooperation (SARRC) Summit was held at Katmandu after a delay of three years. The summit was attended by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as well as by leader of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. The inaugural session was postponed due to President Musharraf’s delayed arrival at Katmandu due to bad weather. Musharraf during the visit called on Nepal’s King Gayanendra Bir Bikram Shah and on Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

The worlds attention was focused keenly on the SARRC Summit held at Katmandu in Nepal to see if whether this summit would reduce the tension between Pakistan and India .The Indian government blamed Pakistan –based militants for the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament. India put a ban on over flights from Pakistan, which was reciprocated by Pakistan. India also cancelled the Samjhota Express and the Delhi-Lahore bus service. Terrorism and the India-Pakistan face-off overshadowed all other issues during the three-day SARRC session .The present session however did endorse conventions on human trafficking for prostitution in South Asian countries, and on child welfare, and on discussion in general of the issue of terrorism in the region and a possible South Asia free trade agreement. The SAARC leaders agreed to remove step by step tariff and non-tariff barriers to create a free trade area in South Asia and agreed to finalize the draft treaty by the end of 2002.

In the midst the thickening of war clouds on the Indo Pak horizon, the SARRC summit offered a ray of hope and opportunity for peace. It was hoped that the summit would provide opportunity to the leaders of the two nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to meet and diffuse the current tension. No bilateral meeting however could take place between the two leaders except for two informal interactions. Indians called these meetings as mere courtesy calls. But despite Indian view the SARRC summit was very significant as it brought the two leaders together on one forum. President Musharraf

Musharraf with Prime Minister of Nepal

very rightly used this forum to deescalate tension with India by extending a hand of friendship to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at the inaugural session of the summit.

The SAARC summit led to some melting of ice between both the countries .The risk of immediate war between India and Pakistan was to some extent pushed back. There is now hope that the present tense situation between the two countries would improve and de-escalation would take place. On the economic and political front the Katmandu SAARC summit ended on an upbeat note with all the members agreeing to forge a multilateral cooperation in a wide range of fields to realize their full potential.