Regional cooperation has been key to economic growth, political stability, and cultural harmony in organizations like the EU, ASEAN, and SCO. Despite South Asia’s vast population and development potential, it remains one of the least integrated regions. SAARC could provide a crucial platform to address shared challenges and enhance collaboration.
As a founding SAARC member, Pakistan has consistently promoted regional cooperation. It supported the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism and its Additional Protocol, even agreeing to provisions on terrorism definitions that remain unresolved in the UN’s draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).
Pakistan also backed the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement at the twelfth summit in 2004 hosted by it, aiming to reduce trade barriers despite domestic reservations. Earlier, it had agreed to the India-led South Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA) in 1993, focused on trade liberalization.
To support trade liberalization under SAARC, Pakistan took an accommodating stance during the 2009–2012 Composite Dialogue with India. It agreed to replace restrictive positive lists with negative lists, allowing open trade for all items not explicitly restricted. Pakistan also considered granting India Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, but India unilaterally suspended the dialogue in 2013, citing unsubstantiated allegations, including LoC violations in Jammu and Kashmir and the beheading of two Indian soldiers.
