South Asian regional forum meets

The first meeting since the collapse of the Agra summit

By Frances Harrison in Colombo

Foreign secretaries of seven South Asian nations are meeting in Sri Lanka to try and revive the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc).

The regional grouping has been dormant for some time, mainly due to troubled relations between its two biggest neighbours, India and Pakistan.

But top-level foreign ministry officials from the two countries are expected to meet on the sidelines of the two day meeting.

It will be their first high-level contact since the collapse of the India-Pakistan Summit in Agra last month and might just help pave the way for a Saarc summit in Nepal soon.

No breakthrough likely

Indian Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer told reporters en route to Colombo that the meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Inamul Haq on Friday would be short, adding that they intended to discuss all bilateral issues.

Chokila Iyer: India will continue to engage Pakistan

She said India's position as stated by both the prime minister and the foreign minister was that it would continue engagement with Pakistan.

This will be the first senior level encounter for India and Pakistan since the summit held last month in the northern Indian city of Agra, where both sides failed to agree on the wording of a joint final statement.

As such it will offer an opportunity for reflection on what went wrong at Agra, but diplomats are not expecting breakthroughs.

Troubled forum

The fact that the Saarc meeting is happening at all is an achievement.

The regional grouping, which represents a fifth of the world's population, has been criticised for years for being ineffective in resolving disputes between its member states.

Official discussions, which are held behind closed doors, are likely to focus on the need to hold a summit level meeting in Nepal soon.

The last summit, set for November 1999, was postponed due to tension between India and Pakistan.

Smaller South Asian countries complain the regional forum has little use unless the two biggest countries sort out their differences.