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South Asian leaders gather at summit

The Columbian
Published: November 26, 2014, 12:00am

KATMANDU, Nepal — South Asian leaders, including those from rivals India and Pakistan, gathered in Nepal’s capital Wednesday to boost cooperation in trade and energy and seek greater peace in the region, home to more than a fifth of the world’s population.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, the first since 2011, is meant as a forum to discuss regional issues, but is usually dominated by the rivalry between Pakistan and India. It is supposed to be held annually, but is often shelved due to member nations disagreeing on meeting dates.

At this year’s gathering in Katmandu, the possibility of a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, threatened to overshadow the proceedings.

In his opening remarks at the summit, Modi recalled the 2008 attacks on the Indian financial capital of Mumbai, in which Pakistani gunmen killed 166 people over four days. Relations between India and Pakistan were frozen after the attacks, and not much progress has been made to restore bilateral ties to normalcy.

Sharif’s presence at the Indian prime minister’s swearing-in ceremony after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won an overwhelming majority in Indian general elections in May had raised hopes that the neighbors would revive peace talks. But the hopes were dashed when India called off official-level talks in August, upset that Pakistan’s envoy to India had held discussions with Kashmiri separatists.

On Tuesday, Indian officials signaled that differences between the two countries remained unresolved when they announced that Modi would not have a bilateral meeting with Sharif. Modi was scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of all the other members of the regional group.

They will, however, have a chance to meet at a dinner being hosted Wednesday night by Nepal’s prime minister, and at a retreat planned for Thursday at a mountain resort near Katmandu.

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