Bangladesh News

The Saarc foreign ministers’ meet beginning here on Saturday is expected to give a concrete shape to the proposed Regional Development Fund, intra-region transport connectivity and tele-medicine network.

The two-day meeting will also review progress on various other proposals, including the setting up of Saarc Food Bank, Investor Protection Agreement and South Asian University, and a plan for the next Saarc summit.

“Saarc has moved from declaratory to implementation stage, and we hope the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers can look at these and move towards implementation,” Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said briefing reporters here Tuesday evening on the upcoming event.

“We have talked to each other and worked out the outlines of several projects”, he said.

Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury will head the Bangladesh delegation at the meeting.

Iftekhar is likely to hold a bilateral meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the sidelines the foreign ministers’ meet. The two had met in Kampala last month just ahead of the Commonwealth summit and in Dhaka on December 1.

On the Saarc Development Fund, Menon said the meeting would try to work out an agreed text.

An agreement on setting up the fund could not be reached at the previous Saarc Summit in Delhi in March this year apparently because of differences over the amount of money to be contributed by the eight member countries — Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Connectivity will be the main theme of the foreign ministers’ meet, Menon said.

Saarc transport ministers at a meeting here last month discussed connectivity in the region, and the need to upgrade customs-related facilities at land transit points.

The issues under discussion are 1,100km Birganj (Nepal)-Katihar (India)-Chittagong rail link, air connectivity between New Delhi and Islamabad, New Delhi and Male, and a rail corridor between Chennai and Colombo with a ferry link in between.

The connectivity proposals have been scanned by Manila-based Asian Development Bank, and Saarc countries are studying security aspects of the proposals, economic viability and benefits of these transport links.

The last summit had decided on connecting all the eight Saarc capitals, and the foreign ministers will now discuss implementation of the proposals in this regard.

Referring to air link between Delhi and Islamabad, Menon said national carriers of India and Pakistan have expressed their inability, citing shortage of aircraft. India has however proposed that private airlines of the two countries be allowed to operate the flights, he added.

The proposed Saarc Food Bank, one of the key areas identified by the Delhi summit, will be of crucial importance, particularly whenever thee is a food shortage in any member-country.

Referring to tele-medicine network, Menon said it was ready for takeoff as most Saac countries have identified hospitals to be linked by the network.

Adoption of villages for development was proposed at the Delhi summit, and it has moved further with plans to do so in clusters.

On the proposed South Asian University, the Indian foreign secretary said the centre of excellence to be based in India would take some time to get a concrete shape since it is intended to be an autonomous institution with plans to rope in private parties.

The proposal for Uniform Motor Vehicles Act will also come up for discussion, he added.

The foreign ministers’ meeting will be preceded by a two-day meeting of Saarc foreign secretaries.

All the Saarc foreign ministers will call on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday.