October 24, 2002	Thursday	Sha’aban 17,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: Pakistan on Wednesday dismissed remarks by the Indian external affairs minister in which he accused Islamabad of repeatedly postponing Saarc meetings.

The comments are “misleading, unwarranted and violative of the Saarc spirit of cooperation,” a Foreign Office spokesman said here in a statement.

He said it was India’s unreasonableness and intransigence that ground the Saarc process to a halt for over two years after October 1999.

“Thus, Mr Sinha’s accusation was invalid and self-exculpatory,” the spokesman added.

SUMMIT DATES: The spokesman said Pakistan had proposed Jan 11-13 as dates for the Saarc summit and duly conveyed it to all the member states.

He was responding to a question about reports in the Indian print media regarding the dates of holding the 12th meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) in Pakistan next year.

The reports quoted officials of the Indian external affairs ministry as saying that the dates for the summit meeting had not yet been proposed.

The spokesman observed that “obviously, the Indian officials were trying to create confusion in a matter which was quite clear.”

He said the dates for the forthcoming Saarc summit were conveyed to the member states both through the Saarc secretariat as well as bilaterally through the Pakistan missions concerned in August 2002.

“It was on Aug 28, that the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi had sent written communications to the joint secretary dealing with Saarc and to the joint secretary dealing with Pakistan in the Indian ministry of external affairs conveying Jan 11-13, 2003, as the dates for the Saarc summit meeting,” he said.

The dates of the preparatory meetings at the ministerial, foreign secretary and senior officials levels that immediately precede the summit meeting were also simultaneously conveyed, the spokesman added. —APP