ISLAMABAD, Nov 12: Islamabad has asked the Saarc Secretariat to confirm participation of its members in the proposed 12th Saarc Summit to be hosted by Pakistan in January 2003 by mid-November, sources in the government told Dawn on Tuesday.

Islamabad made this request to the Saarc secretariat earlier this month maintaining as it needed time to prepare for the summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad from Jan 11 to 13, sources said.

Islamabad has already received confirmations every member state except India and Bhutan. (Bhutan is obliged under its 1949 treaty with India to clear all foreign policy decisions with Delhi.)

In the Saarc foreign ministers meeting held in New York on Sept 16 it was agreed that Saarc members would confirm their participation in the 12th Summit by Sept 23.

Officials at the ministry of foreign affairs expect that New Delhi would most likely respond after a civilian government was in place in Islamabad. But they say that the Summit could take place even if New Delhi and Bhutan confirmed their participation latest by mid-December.

The Indian Acting High Commissioner in Islamabad, Sudhir Vyas told Dawn on Tuesday he had no indications from New Delhi about the Indian participation in the summit, hinting at some delay in the formal announcement in this respect.

“It is difficult to predict,” he said, adding that he was unaware of any cut-off date for confirmation.

The Indian Foreign Minister, Yashwant Sinha, recently made a public statement in New Delhi saying that there was little sense in the summit taking place if progress on the economic front could not be guaranteed.

Essentially, the Indian foreign minister was calling for ratification by all member states of the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

However, no article of the Saarc charter backs this Indian position. The charter does not provide for any pre-conditions that a state could impose upon other member countries. There is no provision in the charter that allows any member to set such a pre-condition for attending the annual summit.

The charter of Saarc makes participation of heads of all member states and governments essential.

The Summit cannot take place even if one member state abstains.

Saarc, which groups Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka was formed 16 years ago to combat region-wide poverty.