November 19, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 13, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 18: The foreign office on Monday reiterated the hope that all the leaders of the seven-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation would attend the Islamabad summit to be held from January 11 to 13, although confirmation from a couple of them was still awaited.

India and Bhutan are said to have withheld their confirmations so far.

Speaking at his weekly press conference, foreign office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said that although the dates for the Islamabad summit had been agreed upon by all the seven foreign ministers during their meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting late last year in New York, some “recalcitrant” leaders of the member states needed “to be persuaded” to take part in the January summit.

The spokesman was asked how long Islamabad would wait for India’s confirmation because there were some reports from New Delhi that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was uncertain about his participation in the Saarc summit in Islamabad apparently because of the present frigid relations between the two neighbours.

The spokesman said that the absence of even one of the seven leaders would frustrate the holding of the summit and all the efforts needed in staging such a high-level meeting would go in vain.