By Umair Jamal
India and Pakistan joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization won’t smooth the forum’s transformation.
Pakistan and India’s imminent accession to the Shanghai Corporation Organization (SCO) as member states has been hailed as a watershed moment for the organization’s growing role as a potential regional integration force. In fact, the organization’s significance (though still symbolic) is being seen as a potential counterweight to the Western security and financial institutions, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and even the International Monetary Fund.
While China and Russia–the two major stakeholders in the SCO–have self-driven motivations to allow these new additions, it would be simplistic to term India and Pakistan’s membership in the SCO as an unambiguously positive way forward for the organization. While the SCO offers novel opportunities for collaboration between its new members, it is probable that Pakistan and India’s well-established bilateral disputes will burden the forum.
Pakistan and India’s bilateral ties have deteriorated in last few months. The release of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the main planner of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, from prison and Pakistan’s refusal to ban Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group accused of carrying out terrorist actions in India, has become latest bone of contention between the two neighbors. India has taken an aggressive stance toward Pakistan while maintaining that any peaceful dialogue with Pakistan would require a peaceful environment, which is impossible unless Pakistan takes action against terror groups based within its borders. Moreover, Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, during his recent visit to Bangladesh, openly acknowledged and acclaimed India’s intervention in East Pakistan’s separation in 1971, which has drawn acute criticism from Pakistan. The Pakistani prime minister’s advisor on foreign affairs remarked afterward that Modi’s “open admission” of Indian intervention in East Pakistan, while regretful, justifies Pakistan stance.
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