1. India’s foreign policy strategic goal – to be transformed into the world power - was set up over half a century ago, immediately after the country had gained its independence. The crash of the bipolar world, collapse of the Soviet Union, and virtual break-up of Nonalignment movement made India to loose the chance to play upon intermediate position between the West and the East and use contradictions between the two systems, that gave it substantial advantage in the past. In a certain way, India’s foreign policy strategy has been re-orientated, but that, primarily, meant mechanisms and ways of achieving macro-goals, not the strategic tasks themselves.
2. To the system of the international relations in the Southern Asia, the India-Pakistan relations are of principal importance, both because of the two countries’ greatest political, economic and military weight, and their virtually continuous confrontation. The differences in national interests, political systems and political cultures, the religious heterogeneity are supplemented with the geo-strategic factor. Pakistan is adjacent to the Muslim region, whence it might receive additional economic and military resources to strengthen its positions against India. From the very outset, Pakistani governments saw India as the major strategic adversary. Even after the 1971 War, Pakistan remains the only India’s potential opponent in Southern Asia.
3. To overcome mistrust between the states and peoples in the region, to strengthen the regional security the important role might be played by the Southern Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Officially, it was set up in December 1985 in Dacca. It was agreed, the SAARK should deal with exclusively problems of economic, technical and cultural cooperation. There were also agreement to prohibit all official discussions of bilateral or disputed issues at joint forums, and to consider any decisions passed only if they got the votes of all the parties present. The SAARK most weighty contribution to normalization of the situation in the region has become forming up the mechanism of informal meetings and discussions between the national leaders.