ISLAMABAD: Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Younus this week pushed for reviving the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) platform after meeting dignitaries from India, Pakistan and other parts of the region. 

SAARC has been effectively dysfunctional since 2016, when its planned Islamabad summit collapsed after India withdrew following a militant attack it blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad denied involvement, but New Delhi’s decision prompted Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan to pull out, leading to the indefinite postponement of the summit.

Younus met Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at former Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia’s state funeral in Dhaka on Wednesday. The funeral also saw a handshake between the Indian and Pakistani representatives, the first high-level contact between officials of the two countries since their conflict in May. 

“During the meetings, Professor Yunus repeatedly emphasized the need to revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC),” Yunus’ account on social media platform X said.

“We witnessed a true SAARC spirit at the funeral yesterday,” the account quoted Yunus as saying. “SAARC is still alive. The SAARC spirit is still alive.”

The Bangladesh leader said apart from Jaishankar and Sadiq, representatives from South Asia who attended the funeral included Nepal’s Foreign Minister Bala Nanda Sharma, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Employment and Tourism Vijitha Herath, and Maldives Minister of Higher Education and Labor Ali Haider Ahmed. 

Yunus said he tried to convene an informal gathering of SAARC leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last year.

His statement to revive SAARC follows that of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who earlier this month also called for reviving the South Asian platform. 

Sharif’s message last month came as the bloc marked the 40th anniversary of its founding charter. The Pakistani premier stressed the importance of deeper economic collaboration and collective responses to shared regional challenges such as poverty, climate-induced natural disasters, food and energy insecurity, and public-health vulnerabilities.