Time has come for India to reconsider MFN status granted to Pakistan, says NCP

Maintaining that Islamabad is not interested having a good relationship with India, as they have thrown stones and thorns when flowers were offered, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Majid Memon has said the time has come to have a relook and reconsider the 'Most Favoured Nation' status granted to Pakistan.

Memon said that India's non-participation in the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit which is scheduled to be held in November in Islamabad is a symbolic protest by the country.

"I think that the honorable Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] by abstaining to attend this [SAARC] meeting wants to send out a loud message to all concerned that Pakistan is a country which needs to be isolated, which needs to be termed as a terrorist country, and which needs to be asked about Uri, Pathankot and the several problems that India is suffering," Memon told ANI.

He said that this gesture will send a befitting kind of reminder to everybody and hoped to see how it goes and what impact does it create.

After India said that Prime Minister Modi will not be going to Islamabad to attend the SAARC Summit, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan also expressed their inability to participate in the meet.

India conveyed a message to the current SAARC Chair Nepal that in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit.

Memon was of the view that New Delhi wanted to extend the hand of friendship, but Islamabad has always attacked New Delhi and taken advantage of its goodness.

"Instances after instances, they have literally confirmed that Pakistan is not interested having a good relationship with us. Therefore, I think, that time has come that the Most Favoured Nation idea is required to have a relook and reconsideration," he added.

Prime Minister Modi has called for a review meeting of the 'Most Favoured Nation' status granted to Pakistan. The meeting will take place on September 29.

It is expected that officials from the Ministry of External Affairs and Commerce Ministry would attend the meeting.

Reports are rife that India is considering withdrawal of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to Pakistan in the wake of the Uri terror attack.

The MFN status was accorded in 1996 as per India's commitments as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to the MFN principle of the WTO's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) - to which India is a signatory/contracting party - each of the WTO member countries (including India and Pakistan in this case), should "treat all the other members equally as 'most-favoured' trading partners."

"Most Favoured Nation" (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. According to the WTO, though the term 'MFN' "suggests special treatment, but it actually means non-discrimination.