SAARC meet: Combat terrorism the core issue

(December, 07, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit already being globalised still on the way to get a global character proved again with Mauritius and Australia formally applied to join the regional groupings as observers at the 29 th session of foreign secretaries of SAARC countries here on today.

The two-day meeting of Foreign Ministers of the SAARC member nations will begin here on Friday. This will be the seventh SAARC Foreign Ministers meeting.

During the meeting the Foreign Ministers will give emphasis on the ways of combating terrorism.

The US, the 27-nation European Union, Japan, China, South Korea and Iran have already been admitted as observers. Iran was the latest addition at the previous SAARC summit held in April in New Delhi this year.

" Australia and Mauritius have applied to join the SAARC. A final decision will be taken by the SAARC summit next year," said Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon after a meeting of the foreign secretaries of SAARC countries. "The world is looking at SAARC in a new way".

The core of the issues will be like liberalisation of visa regime, formation of the SAARC University, tele-medicine network, ratification of agreement, poverty mitigation and social charter will figure in the meeting.

In order get improvement in the regional connectivity the discussion will likely to be held on transportation systems. For this the emphasis will be laid on transport services connecting Colombo, Kochi and Tuticorin, a rail corridor between Chennai and Colombo, Agartala-Chittagong and Kathmandu-Kolkata road corridors and extending the rail link on the border with Bhutan.

SAARC Development fund (SDF) will also be the core of the discussion. The Foreign ministers will also try to kick ahead the proposed regional Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement.

Besides these prominent issues the members will also review economic, social and cultural cooperation among SAARC countries in the context of Delhi Declaration as to foster economic cooperation have also been the theme of the SAARC summit since its inception in 1985.

Apart from this the Foreign Ministers will also decide on the name of the next Secretary General of SAARC. Most probably India will nominate its ambassador to Vienna for the post. The current Secretary General belongs to Bhutan whose tenure will be expired in April 2008.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet his counterpart Pakistan’s Foreign Advisor Inamul Haq and will review the status of composite dialogue between the two countries. This will be the first prime level meeting between the two countries after the imposition of the emergency by the president Pervez Musharraf.

The council of ministers will review on the implementation of the decision taken by the 14 th SAARC summit held in April this year in New Delhi.