Pakistan seeks new South Asian bloc to cut India out

Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has said that a recent trilateral initiative between Bangladesh, China and Islamabad could be "expanded" to include other regional nations and beyond, Al Jazeera has reported.

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Excerpts of the Al Jazeera report: "We have opposed ... zero-sum approaches and consistently stressed the imperative of cooperation rather than confrontation," he told the Islamabad Conclave forum on Wednesday.

In effect, the proposal amounts to the creation of an alternative bloc focused on South Asia, with China added, at a time when the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) the region's main grouping - has been made almost defunct by heightened India-Pakistan tensions in recent years.

In June, diplomats from China, Pakistan and Bangladesh held trilateral talks focusing on regional stability, economic development and enhancing people's lives, a cooperation they said was "not directed at any third party"

Dar's remarks come against a backdrop of escalating regional tensions, including Pakistan's decades-long rivalry with India. The two nuclear-armed neighbours fought a brief four-day air war in May, further straining relations.

Meanwhile, ties between Dhaka and New Delhi have also deteriorated sharply following the ouster of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August last year. Hasina fled to India after being deposed in a popular uprising, and New Delhi has so far refused to send the former PM back to Bangladesh, where she was convicted by a tribunal in November of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.