SAARC vows commitment to combat poverty, disaster, terrorism

DHAKA, Nov. 13 Kyodo

South Asian leaders pledged joint commitment Sunday to alleviating poverty, establishing a mechanism to cope with disasters and combating terrorism.

The 13th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, ended two days of talks adopting a declaration on tackling those issues.

In the Dhaka Declaration, the summit participants denounced coordinated bomb attacks in New Deli in late October and pledged cooperation to get rid of any form of terrorism in South Asia.

They decided to establish a SAARC disaster preparedness center in India to swiftly cope with natural disasters, in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami in last December and the massive Oct. 8 earthquake that struck Pakistan and India.

They also agreed to tackle poverty reduction within the decade to 2015.

On a South Asian Free Trade Area, or SAFTA, which would be launched in January next year, they agreed to hold working-level talks later this month to iron out the remaining differences, including a list of items to be excluded from the tariff reduction.

The declaration pledges commitment to creating a South Asian Economic Union.

The leaders agreed to accept Afghanistan as a new member of the group. They decided to welcome China and Japan either as observers or dialogue partners. But the details of such inclusion will be worked out later.

The declaration calls for promoting mutual understanding and reinforcing confidence on establishing peace, stability and progress and amity in the region through the principles of the SAARC charter.

It emphasizes the liberalization of the visa regime to promote person-to-person contact within the region.

The summit in the Bangladeshi capital was attended by leaders from host country Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.

They included India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

The next SAARC summit will be held in India in 2007.

SAARC was established in 1985 to foster economic cooperation among member states.

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