Manmohan-Gilani Summit: Opening New Chapter in Bilateral Ties

India and Pakistan have talked about writing 'a new chapter' in their accident-prone ties, with Islamabad assuring New Delhi that the terrorists behind the Mumbai carnage, that virtually froze relations between the neighbors, will be brought to justice soon.
In a sign of the new spirit of mutual accommodation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to open a new chapter in ties and hoped the next round of talks will be 'more productive and constructive'.
Meeting on the sidelines of the 17th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Addu (the Maldives), the two leaders held delegation-level talks for around half an hour in a seaside beach cottage at the idyllic Shangri La resort hotel and followed it up with nearly 45 minutes of one-on-one talks.
In addition to resolving to candidly discuss all outstanding issues, ranging from Jammu & Kashmir to Sir Creek, the Prime Ministers focused on terrorism and trade. The two leaders agreed that the measures to facilitate trade and travel across the Line of Control, decided upon by the Foreign Ministers in their July meeting, should be implemented expeditiously. Both Prime Ministers urged a greater degree of openness in discussing all issues of discord during the next round of line Ministry-level talks.
Terrorism Menace
With relations having languished since the cataclysmic 26/11 terror attacks nearly three years ago, the two sided agreed to push a host of initiatives, including the revival of the joint commission, a preferential trade agreement and liberal visa regime.
The Indian prime minister conveyed to his Pakistani counterpart that both countries have an obligation to ensure that terrorism does not spoil relations between them and pressed for justice for 26/11 victims.
Terrorism is a perennial concern. We have an obligation to ensure that it does not spoil relations between the two countries," Manmohan conveyed to Gilani during talks.
Singh told Gilani that "it is imperative to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 attacks to justice." The two leaders agreed that terrorism posed the most serious threat to peace and stability in the region."
Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar discussed trade and terrorism issues with a view to broadening the two countries’ engagement.
The two ministers informally indicated to the media that the atmosphere was positive. Krishna is learnt to have stressed the need for Pakistan to deal effectively with those responsible for mounting the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, and not allow its soil to be used by terrorists targeting India.

MFN Status
India announced a trade-related confidence-building measure to match Pakistan according the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India. Ms Khar indicated Pakistan would soon finalize its decision to offer India the “MFN” trading status as a means to widen the engagement process.
Earlier on 2 November, Pakistan decided to grant MFN status to India, 15 years after New Delhi accorded it the same level of treatment.
MFN is a level of treatment accorded by countries interested in increasing trade with each other. Countries achieving MFN are given trade advantages such as reduced tariffs on imported goods. Special consideration is given to countries classified as "developing" by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which also enforces the status.
Pakistan has already bestowed MFN status on over 100 countries, including its all-weather friend China, but had been hesitant to do so in the case of India because of the fear that Indian exporters may flood Pakistani markets with their merchandise once normal trade is allowed.
Formal trade between India and Pakistan averages $ 2.5 billion annually, it is the informal route through the trading centers of Singapore and Dubai that is bigger and is estimated to be around $ 3.5 billion. Now Pakistan has granted India MFN status, formal trade may shoot up to $ 6 billion. Pakistan’s Planning Commission estimates that trade will to grow to $ 10 billion soon once MFN status is given to India. Freeing up many trading items could see the two countries making value additions to each other products.
Preferential Trade Agreement
India has decided to move toward a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Pakistan as both sides agreed to put in place a liberalized visa regime soon.
The decision to move towards a Preferential Trade Agreement with Pakistan under the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) that will lead to zero customs duty on all traded goods by 2016 came during Singh-Gilani meeting. The two leaders also agreed that bilateral trade will be conducted on Most Favored Nation basis.Both leaders decided to put in place a liberalized visa regime that is being negotiated at the earliest and revive the Indo-Pak Joint Commission that has not been in operation since 2005. The SAFTA is an agreement reached in the 2004 SAARC summit in Islamabad which created a free trade area of 1.8 billion people in Bangladesh, India, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

11th Commonwealth Summit

The three-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) concluded in Perth (Australia) on 30 October. The meeting did well to highlight the issues related to security and hunger as these affect a vast section of humanity.
Eliminating Terrorism
The 11th CHOGM collectively pledged to fight terrorism by preventing the use of their territories for terrorist acts or financing and also vowed to accelerate efforts to combat piracy and strengthening maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
The 54-nation bloc, in its joint communiqué, committed to "unequivocally preventing the use of their territories for the support, incitement to violence or commission of terrorist acts".
They also agreed to work towards implementing the necessary legal framework for the suppression of terrorist financing, and preventing the raising and use of funds by terrorists, their front organizations, and transnational terrorist organizations.
Terrorism continues to pose a major threat despite billions of rupees having been spent on eliminating the scourge. The CHOGM communiqué rightly expressed its commitment to prevent the use of its territory by any nation for promoting terrorism. It also called for suppressing funding sources for acts of terror.
How it goes about forcing certain countries like Pakistan to stop using terrorism for their geopolitical objectives remains to be seen. Terrorists may be down but they are not out. They continue to claim lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. India’s maintenance of its tight vigil has paid dividends.
Economic Issue
On economic front, the CHOGM communiqué noted the “impasse” in the Doha round and urged the trade ministers’ World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in December to make “substantive progress” as well as make a formal “anti-protectionist pledge”.
The leaders at the Perth Meeting also agreed to reduce the cost of remittance transfers by removing barriers to remitting and encouraging greater competition in the transfer market, by endorsing the World Bank’s General Principles for International Remittance Services.
International Security Problem
As regards the international security issue, piracy was another issue that figured prominently in the communiqué as the group maintained their commitment to a stable and secure national and international environment.
In addition to accelerating efforts to combat piracy and to strengthen maritime security, including through enhancing the capacity of coastal states, the communiqué also urged the international community to recognize that the menace of piracy in the Indian Ocean cannot be effectively tackled in the absence of political stability and security in Somalia.
The leaders at the meeting expressed the view that the international community must ensure stability in the poverty-stricken African nation. Poverty drove most Somalians to take to piracy. Thus, the cause of eliminating poverty wherever it exists, too, must get precedence along with the need for providing stability. They affirmed support to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and its Seventh Review Conference in December 2011 and pledged to continue tackling the root causes of conflict, including through the promotion of democracy, development and strong legitimate institutions.
The Perth Summit also agreed to combat people smuggling and human trafficking by clamping down on illicit criminal organizations and bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice, while protecting and supporting the victims of trafficking.
Grouping Reforms
The 11th CHOGM indirectly sent out the message that the grouping of 54 former British colonies would not allow any kind of discrimination on the basis of one’s sex. The call for reforms by the Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) led by former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi needs to be given a serious thought.
The leaders at the Perth meeting agreed to adopt one third of the 106 recommendations of an eminent persons group to make the grouping more relevant in current times, but virtually rejected the proposal for a human rights commissioner. Faced with a tough task of ushering in reforms, leaders of the 54-nation bloc had asked their foreign ministers to work overnight on recommedations of the 11-member EPG, which had gone public with its criticism.
Climate Change
With many of the Commonwealth nations being low-lying islands, the Perth meeting agreed on a slew of measures to promote action on climate change, including a push to find better ways to fund mitigation and adaptation projects.
Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed said a number of the EPG recommendations touched upon the issue of climate change and all have been accepted by the CHOGM leaders.
The issue of climate change is not of the future. It is happening now and we must deal with it now
India's Development Agenda
India returns with a feeling of satisfaction from the CHOGM, having managed to keep the 54-nation grouping focused on the development agenda.
Dismissing the general perception that the meeting was a failure because it did not accept the reform agenda set by some countries, Vice President Hamid Ansari, who headed the Indian delegation at CHOGM, said the Commonwealth has been an organization that has evolved slowly and could not be pushed into “instant” action. “We reiterated our perspective on institutions - that we needed to strengthen existing institutions rather than create new ones,” Ansari said in a clear reference to the effort by some developed nations to push through the creation of a Commissioner for Human Rights. The contentious recommendation was contained in a report by an EPG comprising civil society members, and some member-nations had sought to link its acceptance to the success of CHOGM 2011.
Some of the EPG recommendations have been accepted, others have been kept aside for further discussions, with officials indicating that the opposition to them was so widespread that they were unlikely to be adopted.
In fact, dispelling the perception that only some countries - including India, Sri Lanka and South Africa – were against the creation of the Commissioner’s office, an Indian official said that more than 30 of the 54 Commonwealth nations were opposed to the move.
Kamalesh Sharma Reappointed Chief
Seventy-year-old seasoned Indian diplomat Kamalesh Sharma was reappointed secretary general of the 54-nation Commonwealth grouping for a four-year term beginning April 2012.
India proposed Sharma’s name for a second term to the coveted post at the concluding session of the 21st Commonwealth heads of government meeting here. Pakistan seconded it. The proposal was accepted unanimously by everybody.
Sri Lanka would host its next Commonwealth Summit in 2013.

Fifth IBSA Summit

The fifth India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit, which was held in Pretoria on 18 October, has come out with a declaration on major global issues with focus on reforms of multilateral organisations, including the UN Security Council (UNSC), the IMF and the World Bank to give greater voice to emerging countries like India.
The Summit came out with the Tshwane Declaration following the discussions between the leaders of India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.
On global governance reform, the three leaders reaffirmed their commitment to increase the participation of developing countries in the decision-making bodies of multilateral institutions.
UN and IMF Reforms
They underscored the need for urgent reform of the United Nations (UN) to render it more democratic and consistent with the current geopolitical reality. They particularly emphasized that no reform of the United Nations will be complete without a reform of the UNSC, including an expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent categories of its membership, with increased participation of developing countries in both.
IBSA, as like-minded countries, will continue to strive to contribute to a new world order whose political, economic and financial architecture is more inclusive, representative and legitimate, the declaration stated.
It also called for the early implementation of the targets for the reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to ensure that the body is democratic, responsive and accountable. The leaders reiterated that the governing structure of the Fund should reflect the changed realities of the global economy in the 21st century, through the increased voice and representation of emerging economies and developing countries.
Global Economic Growth
The leaders agreed that the Heads and senior leadership of all international institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based process beginning with the selection of the next President of the World Bank in 2012.
The declaration expressed concern at the ongoing deterioration of the global economic scenario, which presents particular challenges for the economic policy and growth prospects of developing and low-income countries. Downside risks have increased substantially in recent weeks. They stressed the importance of the implementation of a credible plan of macro-economic and financial policies and structural reforms by the Eurozone countries, as a necessary step to prevent further negative shocks to the world economy. They also highlighted the importance of complementary measures by other key developed economies to boost recovery and help the global economy as a whole.
The leaders stressed on the need to increase policy coordination among G20 nations, with a view to avert a new recession and to promote a robust recovery in order to ensure strong, sustainable and balanced growth of the global economy in the medium term.
The current impasse in the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is a source of serious concern, the declaration said.
At the Summit of three leading economies, Manmohan Singh, joined by Zuma and Rousseff, cautioned that economic crisis in developed countries could affect developing nations and pressed for urgent steps by Europe and other advanced economies to prevent “double-dip” recession.
The three leaders also demanded reform of global institutions of governance, including the United Nations and financial bodies, to address current international challenges.
India’s Stand
The Indian prime minister said that the world financial and capital markets were showing signs of “acute distress” due to the negative signals sent by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and recessionary trends in the “traditional engines” of global economy - the United States, Europe and Japan.
Dr Singh, Zuma and Rousseff, who represent the fast developing economies, discussed the crisis being faced by the advanced countries at their day-long trilateral Summit and were in agreement that the situation needs to be prevented from spiralling out of hand.
The Indian prime minister voiced his hope that effective and early steps will be taken by Europe and other advanced economies to calm the capital and financial markets and prevent the global economy from slipping into a double-dip recession.
Manmohan Singh said that there has been steady growth in the three economies despite the global economic slowdown and intra-IBSA trade has almost touched the $20 billion dollar mark, the Indian prime minister said. The IBSA countries have set a target of $25 billion by 2015.
India will host the next IBSA summit in 2013.