The proposed meeting between Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani, on the sidelines of a two-day summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), is ostensibly over a water-sharing row.

"As of now there is a move for them to discuss the water dispute, but what comes up during the dialogue only time will tell," a senior official in Singh's office told AFP.

The dispute dates back to 1984, when India began building a dam affecting a river shared by the two countries.

The summit in the Bhutanese capital Thimpu opening Wednesday is supposed to culminate in a declaration entitled "Towards a Green and Happy South Asia", but attention will likely focus on bitter relations between Pakistan and India.

India broke off all dialogue with neighbouring Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed at least 166 people and which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

A tentative resumption occurred in February when top foreign ministry bureaucrats met in Delhi, but talks ended with India insisting full talks would require Pakistan to bring those responsible for the Mumbai carnage to justice.

In a statement on Friday, the Pakistani foreign ministry had said Gilani would "hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts" in Thimpu but made no specific mention of Singh.

Singh and Gilani last came face-to-face at a 47-nation summit on nuclear security in Washington, where they shook hands at a dinner reception and exchanged little more than pleasantries.

Delhi-based strategic analyst C.U. Bhaskar predicted little would result from any contact between the two prime ministers.

"But then the issue of India-Pakistan talks does have a tendency to overshadow SAARC, and this summit will be no different," Bhaskar said.

SAARC was formed in 1985 with the aim of encouraging development and raising the living standards of poverty-stricken people in a region home to one-fifth of humanity.

But 25 years and 15 summits later, the group has achieved very little -- a failing largely attributed to the volatile relationship between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

The other members are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

"SAARC still has great potential," said Kalim Bahadur, a retired professor of South Asian Studies from Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"But because of the India-Pakistan tensions and conflicts, it's just never been able to fulfil the aspirations of its founders."

The situation is not helped by the fact that India and Pakistan are locked in a struggle for influence in Afghanistan, which joined SAARC in 2007, adding a conflict involving the United States to the group's other headaches.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai met Singh in New Delhi ahead of the summit, and the Indian prime minister was expected to reiterate concerns over attacks on Indian targets in Afghanistan blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.

Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan have fought three wars since the subcontinent's 1947 partition and remain at loggerheads over the disputed region of Kashmir.

For SAARC's smaller members, the India-Pakistan dynamic undermines the group's efforts in other areas such as trade and development.

Bhutan is hosting the summit for the first time and the tiny Himalayan kingdom hopes to prioritise global warming, which is of concern to SAARC members like Bangladesh and The Maldives, both threatened by rising sea levels.

"We will be pushing for a South Asian climate change deal," Bangladeshi foreign ministry spokeswoman Saida Tasnim Mona told AFP.

"We need to form a common front to fight the effects of climate change," she said.

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