The Hindu : International : Pakistan keeping its fingers crossed on admission to ASEAN forum

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 24, 2004

International

International

Pakistan keeping its fingers crossed on admission to ASEAN forum

By P.S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, APRIL 23. The Association of South East Asian Nations is "consulting India" on the possibility of admitting Pakistan to the ASEAN Regional Forum [ARF], an elite group on security dialogue. The question of Pakistan's credentials, which has been hanging fire for nearly a year now, is expected to be discussed soon by the ARF's senior officials, who will prepare the ground for the Forum's next annual meeting in July.

While the ASEAN, a core-group within the ARF, has already recommended Islamabad's entry, the contentious issue has not yet been clinched by the larger Forum, which includes several major powers ranging from the United States and Russia to China and India. Islamabad is keeping its fingers crossed, waiting to see whether the latest atmospherics of goodwill on the bilateral front with India would now do the trick or whether New Delhi would still seek to stop Pakistan at the ARF door.

Asked whether India was the only "hold-out country" opposing Pakistan, the ASEAN Secretary-General, Ong Keng Yong, told The Hindu in Singapore on Wednesday that it was an "yes, at this moment." The `yes' would "not mean that the other [non-ASEAN] countries are completely without reservations."

Mr. Ong said: "Some of the non-ASEAN ARF participants are saying that if we lift the moratorium [on new membership and admit Pakistan], we should also take into account what we want to do with Bangladesh and East Timor [the other two applicants]. The ASEAN explanation is that while there is a consensus among the ASEAN countries on Pakistan, right now, we have not yet decided what should we do with [the] other people in the queue." Although some non-ASEAN members might not have objected to Islamabad's status, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. had not yet clarified their position about the applicants other than Pakistan. Indeed, any such move to link Pakistan's case with the acceptability of the other aspirants "will also be [a matter of] blocking the whole exercise," Mr. Ong pointed out. On Islamabad's assurance to the ARF that India-Pakistan issues would not be brought before the Forum, Mr. Ong said: "I have not seen anything so specific, and I don't think it is for the long-term good of the ARF to be so specific now. There might be a situation where something happening in South Asia will affect us [the ARF as a whole]. But, if they [the Pakistanis] have done it, well, [it's] fine."

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