India to host SAARC summit April 3-4 : International

Dhaka, Aug 3 - India has called for greater connectivity in South Asia as it prepares to hold the 14th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in New Delhi April 3-4 next year. A SAARC car rally will be held as a curtain raiser to the summit where Afghanistan will be formally inducted as the eighth member in the regional grouping that currently comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives. The US, China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union have been accepted as observers and will be invited to attend the SAARC summit in New Delhi for the first time. 'The summit will be held in New Delhi April 3 and 4, 2007. This will be preceded by the meetings of the council of ministers and, before that, the standing committee meeting and the programming committee meeting,' India's Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters after the 27th Session of the SAARC Council of Ministers ended here Wednesday night. India's quest to step up connectivity in South Asia and to accelerate cooperation among SAARC nations received a boost with the SAARC council of ministers' meeting approving some pet Indian proposals, including the setting up of the SAARC Disaster Management Centre and a SAARC Museum for Textiles and Handicrafts. Other Indian proposals given the go ahead included a Telemedicine Network linking all the SAARC member countries, the setting up of a South Asia University and a SAARC Development Fund. 'We are very happy to report that the Council of Ministers which met today endorsed these proposals and welcomed India's initiative in this regard,' Saran said. 'We have agreed that the details concerning these projects will now be taken up at the next meeting of the programming committee,' he added. Describing the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement as 'the first project for collaboration amongst the SAARC countries,' Saran also exhorted other countries to move the SAARC 'from a declaratory phase into an implementation phase'. Saran deplored the decision of Pakistan to limit free trade area and said that this could jeopardise the very future of this landmark agreement. 'What we are concerned about is that a certain step taken by Pakistan may jeopardise the future of SAFTA itself. And, therefore, it is not a matter of whether India has won out or if Pakistan has won out,' he said in response to a question. Saran warned against making SAARC meetings 'an India-Pakistan competition' and said that the two countries have decided to stay engaged and push the peace process forward, but for this to happen Pakistan must commit to end cross-border terrorism. 'This (moving the peace process forward) is what the leadership of the two countries wish, this is what the people of Pakistan and people of India wish. So, it will be our endeavour to make certain through whatever appropriate actions which are required that this peace process does not get affected,' he said.