ISAS Insights

On 2 November 2011, Pakistan's cabinet decided to grant India the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, which it should have done soon after the two countries joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). That was 15 years ago. India gave Pakistan the MFN status; Pakistan held it back until now in the hope that it could leverage the MFN issue to get concessions out of New Delhi on Kashmir. This, of course, did not happen. The grant of MFN to India should begin to normalise economic and trade relations between the two countries. That notwithstanding, this paper suggests that the significance of this move goes much beyond bilateral relations between the two countries. It could - perhaps would - influence Pakistan's tattered relations with the United States (US) and to help bring peace to the South Asian sub-continent.