THE leaders of the South Asian countries have just gone through another pleasant but sterile Saarc summit meeting in the beautiful mountain kingdom of Bhutan.

Once again, the leaders called it a 'landmark' meeting, though there was nothing of note except that Bhutan was hosting the summit for the first time. The summit declaration was as ambitious as any, but if the past is any precedent, it will remain a mere expression of good intentions.

It is this dismal track record that has encouraged the perception that Saarc is a mere talking shop, unable to achieve meaningful headway in implementing its declarations. At the root of this malaise, lies the continuing hostility between Pakistan and India.

While many of its faults could be removed through the revision of its charter and the reordering of its priorities, unless member states demonstrate greater political will and eschew narrow national interests, Saarc will remain the weakest link in the chain of regional organisations that girdles the globe. This pervading atmosphere of mistrust was poignantly acknowledged by the host, Prime Minister Jigme Thinley, when he warned that “fractious and quarrelsome neighbours do not make a prosperous community”.

The summit's declaration called upon the leaders to ensure that the organisation lived up “to the hopes and aspirations of one-fifth of humanity”. It also adopted the Thimphu statement on climate change, besides unveiling a poverty reduction fund. Leaders signed agreements on trade and environmental protection.

But as in the past, the smaller states were not too thrilled to observe India-Pakistan ties dominating the summit. The Maldives president demanded that the two countries 'compartmentalise' their animosities, so as not to impede regional cooperation.

Nevertheless, Thimphu's idyllic setting did succeed in thawing the ice between the two countries, when it was announced at the end of the tête-à-tête between Prime Ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh that they had agreed to revive, without preconditions, the dialogue that had been kept suspended since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Both sides termed the meeting as “very positive”, with Foreign Minister Qureshi gushing that the meeting was “warm, cordial and engaging”. He also claimed that all issues, including Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek, were on the table. According to him, Gilani assured Singh that the perpetrators of Mumbai would be brought to justice. In view of the trust deficit between the countries, their foreign ministers were tasked with bridging the gap to “take the process forward”.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was more circumspect. She told the media that the two leaders held good talks in a “free and frank manner”, but that Singh expressed concern over the slow progress of the Mumbai trials in Pakistan, adding somewhat ominously that Singh had been “very emphatic that the terror machine needs to be controlled, needs to be eliminated”.

The agreement to resume the dialogue process is a positive development. But the mere resumption of 'talks to have talks' is not an occasion to go overboard. After all, the two countries have been talking to each other for the past 60 years, formally and informally, within and outside established formats. Talks are a means to an end, not the end itself. So, the Thimphu announcement has to be treated with caution.

In any case, it should not be forgotten that since the foreign secretaries' meeting in Delhi earlier this year, India had been signalling its readiness to resume dialogue, but outside the format mutually agreed upon between them as far back as June 1997. Pakistan's stand, on the other hand, had been that the dialogue needed to be conducted within the established formal, structured format. What led Pakistan to abandon its stand?

After all, India has always been willing to talk; what has been lacking is the commitment to resolving differences. This was painfully evident in the failure of the talks between the Indus water commissioners, which was followed by Indian statements to the effect that Pakistan's concerns on water were a “gimmick” and a propaganda device, lacking substance and reality.

Even during the Washington nuclear security summit last month, Singh chose to dwell on Pakistan's transgressions and failures in his meeting with Obama, while Foreign Secretary Rao accused Pakistan of using terrorism as a policy tool, adding that India should not be expected to resume talks until Pakistan was able to “cease its encouragement of terrorist groups that were targeting India”.

What then explains this apparent volte-face, if Qureshi's claims are to be taken at face value? For one, New Delhi has made no secret of its disappointment with what it perceives is a change in the Obama administration's attitude to the region. Instead of piling pressure on Pakistan, Washington is now appreciating Islamabad's efforts and seeking its cooperation, especially in the unfolding post-exit strategy in Afghanistan.

More importantly, since this envisages a planned US drawdown from Afghanistan, but not any diminution of its presence in the region, Pakistan's role will continue to figure in all American calculations. This explains the anxious flurry of diplomatic overtures by India to Russia and Iran (even Saudi Arabia), to work in concert with them on Afghanistan, which is likely to remain an object of desire not only for Pakistan, but for others, as well.

No less important has been the impact of the Obama administration's 'counsel' to India to resume the dialogue process with Pakistan. How else can Pakistan be persuaded to devote its resources and energies to the western front? Voices have also been raised in India itself, indicating that it cannot achieve global player status while remaining recalcitrant and prickly in its own region.

These developments call for the Pakistani leadership to respond to India's gesture with maturity, because the resumption of talks does not necessarily represent a change in India's strategic approach to Pakistan — it is only a tactical modification. Of course, this should not mean the weakening of our resolve to achieve a cooperative relationship with India, but to paraphrase Lenin, we must not confuse form with substance.