The reason why solutions are found for regional problems and the cancellation of this year's SAARC Summit, which was to be held in Pakistan, is undoubtedly the effect of the disputes between India and Pakistan.
India's opinion of Pakistan began becoming clearer once Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office. He had however met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during the 2014 SAARC Summit held in Nepal.
However, within the past year, a cold war has seemed to emerge between the nations with accusations and insults being thrown across the border. Pakistan fails to show up at regional meetings held in India, and India fails to show up for meetings in Pakistan.
The matter heated even more during June of this year, when a Kashmir youth was gunned down by Indian soldiers. Indians saw the act as getting rid of a terrorist. The youth of Kashmir however, saw him as a national hero and a freedom fighter. Protests erupted within the city after his death, and the Indian military has cracked down violently on the protesters. As a result, Kashmir has began retaliating.
Pakistan has taken this issue and pressed it in international organisations. India alleged that the crux of the problem in Kashmir was Pakistan. Pakistan vehemently denies this claim.
The situation in Kashmir has deteriorated to a level where a full out war between the two nations involved does not seemed like such a far fetched idea. Both countries kept on making allegations against one another until last month.
The South Asian Summit has also now entered into the dispute between these two nations. Indian boycott of the summit to be held in Pakistan saw other nations in the area boycott the summit as well. Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh all boycotted the summit. The remaining three members Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives all chose to remain silent on this matter.
The three countries seemingly on the side of Pakistan are all countries in which China has interests in. All three countries have seemingly taken into account the competitiveness of the relationship between India and China and the relationship between Pakistan and China, which influenced them to deal with this situation from a diplomatically neutral standpoint.
Members of different levels of the Pakistani government has visited these three countries. Pakistan wanted to prove to India that it was still in favor with the other members of the region despite not being able to successfully host the summit.
If the plans had gone through without the hiccups, then the South Asian summit would have been held during the upcoming Tuesday in Islamabad, Pakistan. The summit would have been one where leaders of the countries in this region get to meet up, talk about the problems nations are facing and work to solve disputes. However, the friction between the two nuclear powers of South Asia has seen a hindrance caused on the regional organisation's work.
The next summit is set to be held in the year 2019. This summit is arranged to be held in Bangalore, India. Pakistan is expected to try and block the summit being held in India the same way India had blocked the summit in Pakistan. The regional meetings will be put in a deadlock. The future of for SAARC does not seem much bright.
