The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Colombo

As Sri Lanka dresses up to host the 15th SAARC summit August 2-3, Foreign Advisor Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said here Tuesday if there be political will on part of the South Asian leadership, the eight-nation forum could be immensely beneficial for the people of this potential but impoverished region.

"So far, unfortunately, our public believes that they are not sufficiently benefited from SAARC. Bangladesh is conceiver of SAARC. Our wishes are to create some kind of People's SAARC whereby they derive benefit from the organization," he said in an interview with UNB Chief of Correspondents Shamim Ahmad on board the flight to Colombo.

Iftekhar, who leads the Bangladesh delegation to the SAARC Council of Ministers (Foreign Ministers) meeting here on July 31 (Thursday), said a fifth of the global population lives in this region which is bestowed with huge intellectual and vast economic resources to improve the living standard of the South Asians.

The Foreign Advisor admitted that doubts and distrusts among some member-states slowed down the desired progress of SAARC, launched in Dhaka in 1985 with a vision to bring about socioeconomic changes for the people in the region.

"It is true because of the nature of politics of our part of the world," he said, "because while we are stressing commonalities, we are also stressing distinctiveness from each other."

However, Iftekhar, a checkered diplomat-turned Foreign Ministry custodian of the caretaker government, hastened to add that this is only natural in the evolving of a regional organization.

Citing the teething pains of other regional organizations, like ASEAN, he said there were disputes between Cambodia and Thailand. If people of SAARC believe in cooperation than confrontation, this organization must achieve its goal.

The Foreign Advisor said if the people in South Asia "believe that cooperation will give them better benefit than confrontation, it is the duty of the leadership to give the people that kind of cooperation".

In reply to a question, Iftekhar said the Colombo summit would focus

on four core issues-Food Security, Trade, Energy, and Climate Change.

As umpteen people across the globe go hungry against the backdrop of recent setbacks on the agricultural front, he noted that food security is important for SAARC member-states. Bangladesh, he said, achieved near-self-sufficiency by producing 30 million metric tons of food this year.

"We think there should be a SAARC strategic reserve from where the member-states can draw food when necessary," he said.

The Foreign Advisor said Bangladesh is going to sign South Asian Development Fund (SADF) Agreement at the Colombo summit. He pointed out huge trade imbalances between some SAARC countries.

Citing the trade deficit of nearly USD 2 billion between Bangladesh and India, Iftekhar said, "We believe that Indian Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh intellectually accepts that India is like a senior partner in SAARC, and in that position, India has a disproportionate responsibility towards other smaller SAARC countries."

He said, "We believe that it should be possible for us to create greater market access to India without reciprocity so that trade imbalance (against Bangladesh) can be reduced."

On the question of energy-a second grueling issue in the present world scenario-the Foreign Advisor said it needs a more definite survey to determine the actual quantum of energy resources in the region and devise a way in which energy could be used for the maximum benefit of the member-states.

On ways of combating the adverse effects of climate change, Iftekhar said it is not enough to control the emission of Greenhouse gases and "in the given reality of the world it is difficult to control the emission the way we desire".

He said adaptation to climate change is the key, but the adaptation is expensive business. LDCs like Bangladesh will be required to pull in huge resources to adapt themselves to the changing climate-a phenomenon that causes sea-level rise and brings catastrophic floods, droughts and storms.

Iftekhar said Bangladesh has a great success in mitigation of natural disasters and the disaster management policy was praised at the recently held ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting. Bangladesh would be happy to exchange its experience with other SAARC members.

Asked if Bangladesh would propose formation of SAARC Climate Change Fund, he said Dhaka would like to propose a methodology whereby those countries that leave smaller carbon are rewarded.

Dhaka is for some kind of mechanism to be designed whereby non-polluters are provided economic incentives. "We should be able to do this within the framework of SAARC," he said.