India's diplomacy after Uri ensured all SAARC countries boycotted summit

New Delhi: Nepal on Sunday urged SAARC member states to “ensure that their respective territories are not used by terrorists for cross-border terrorism”, while officially informing them about the postponement of the summit in Pakistan.

But it was India’s diplomacy and pressure which ensured that the summit was called off. On September 27, the embassies of SAARC countries barring Pakistan got calls from South Block in New Delhi for the boycott of the summit, said a report in The Indian Express.

Diplomats from SAARC member countries were quoted as saying that they got calls from the Ministry of External Affairs last Tuesday, between 4 pm and 5 pm, calling for the boycott of the SAARC summit. But none of the SAARC countries were informed about the plans for surgical strikes.

The calls were made over a day before India conducted the strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) against terrorist hideouts.

The decision to boycott SAARC was taken after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s speech at the UNGA. It was provoked by Pakistan’s assertion at the world body that the Uri attack was a ‘false flag operation’ meaning a stage-managed attack.

India had deliberated on the pros and cons of the decision but Pakistan’s statements angered many in the establishment, which led to South Block pulling the trigger, said the report.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar then summoned Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit — for the second time in a week — to share information about the arrest of Pakistan’s nationals who had acted as guides for the Uri attackers and had also identified two of their handlers and one of the four slain terrorists.

While some countries like Bangladesh readily agreed to postpone the summit, others had to be persuaded. But the ‘game-changer’ was the stance of Afghanistan, which multiple conversations at diplomatic as well as political levels made possible. Kabul’s use of phrase “imposed terrorism on Afghanistan” was a result of his disappointment with Pakistan’s establishment, especially after the talks with Taliban did not make progress.

After the Uri attack, Ghani had called Modi to convey his condolences and indicate support for actions against terrorism. This made Afghanistan’s assent to boycott the SAARC summit easier to obtain.

Soon after Afghanistan and Bangladesh had decided to skip the summit, Bhutan too fell in line, as it wanted to show its solidarity with South Block, though it was not directly affected by terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

Sri Lanka’s announcement, however, came after the surgical strikes, when it was clear that New Delhi had decided to take strong action for Uri. Finally, Maldives too assented to boycott of the summit and Pakistan was forced to postpone it.

“The window of decision-making was very narrow… the embassies worked closely with South Block… there was tremendous pressure on us,” a diplomat from one of the SAARC countries was quoted as saying in the report.

Eventually, Nepal said it “regrets that regional environment is not conducive to host the 19th SAARC summit” and that it “unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and expresses its solidarity in the global fight against terrorism”, thus driving the final nail in the coffin for the November summit.