ASEAN pushes for Pak membership to ARF

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which set up the ARF a decade ago, decided late Monday to lift the forum's moratorium on new members and push for Pakistan to become its 24th member.

Fearing the move could open the floodgates for membership, it was decided that other long-standing applicants -- including East Timor, Iran and Sri Lanka -- be considered on a case-by-case basis, officials said.

Tap Here to Add The Daily Star As A Trusted Source

Wednesday's annual meeting of the ARF, of which Pakistan's arch-rival India is a member, is expected to accept Pakistan's membership by consensus, they said.

Diplomats said India might object to Pakistan's inclusion even though Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee recently offered to resolve the nuclear rivals' longstanding dispute over Kashmir at the peace table.

Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, has caused two of the three wars between the rival neighbours since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

"By bringing in Pakistan, the ARF will provide an important forum for Pakistan and India to discuss a regional flashpoint, Kashmir," ASEAN's head of external relations Sundram Pushpanathan told AFP.

He said while the move would give a higher profile to the ARF as a mechanism to resolve the India-Pakistan dispute, "more importantly we must see Pakistan's inclusion as an initiative by ASEAN to bring counter-terrorism to the fore.

"With the imminent terrorism threat, you cannot leave out Pakistan, who is an important player in addressing the issue in the region. You have to bring them on board."

Southeast Asia's principal terrorism concern is with regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the regional chapter of the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan is viewed as a key ally by Washington in the campaign against international terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States blamed on al-Qaeda.

Pakistan, which nurtured and supported the harsh Taliban regime in Afghanistan until September 2001, has been accused of allowing fugitive Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists to hide in its border region, prompting angry denials from Islamabad.

Diplomatic sources told AFP that ASEAN could seek US support to lobby India not to object to Pakistan's inclusion in the ARF.

Relations between India and the United States, which imposed sanctions on country after it tested nuclear weapons in May 1998, have improved considerably since New Delhi joined the US-led "coalition against terrorism" following the September 11 attacks.

The ASEAN move to include Pakistan was led by Malaysia and received quick support from other Muslim nations Indonesia and Brunei, as well as ASEAN members Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, officials said.

An ASEAN diplomat said the grouping had forged an "excellent relationship with India in recent years," capped with the introduction of annual talks between the Southeast Asian leaders and India's Vajpayee last year.

"I don't think India will want to throw the spanner into the works at this juncture and spoil Pakistan's chances of entering the ARF," he said.