January 10, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 6, 1423

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RAWALPINDI, Jan 9: The delegates of the 28th South Asian Sports Federation (SASF) meeting Thursday called for a temporary lifting of ban on Pakistani flights over India in order to facilitate the countries coming to Islamabad for the 9th SAF Games.

The delegates from Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives stressed that there should be a truce between Pakistan and India during the course of the March 29 to April 7 Games. “If North and South Koreas can walk under one flag at the Olympics, I do not see why some kind of truce is not possible for the sake of these Games,” the head of the Sri Lankan delegation, Hemesiri Fernando said.

But India were unable to make it to Rawalpindi as their delegation led by Suresh Kalmadi could not fly out of New Delhi because of foggy weather. The Chairman of the SAF Games Organising Committee, Lt. Gen Syed Arif Hasan quickly dismissed any notion of India not attending the Games. “I am still confident that they will take part,” he said.

The general said that Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic Committee had informed them of the reason for their missing the meeting. “Kalmadi told us that whatever decisions were taken would be acceptable to them.”

A ban on over flights means that some of the participating nations have to take long connections to arrive in Pakistan leading to additional expenditure for the National Olympic Committees.

Yonten Tharchen, the delegate from Bhutan and Muhammad Zahir Naseer of Maldives, urged the organisers that some sort of an arrangement be worked out with Pakistan International Airlines to give concessions to the teams.

“Our numbers would largely depend on that,” they said.

Sri Lankan official pointed out that it was a tradition for the host country to offer concessions and it would be appropriate if Pakistan did the same.

However, Gen Arif while refusing to give a categorical commitment on this assured the house that he would get back to them shortly. “PIA may be willing to help but at this point I cannot say for sure.”

Wajid Ali Shah, president of the SASF said that the matter could only be solved after speaking to PIA.

“If there is any difficulty beyond their control, it will have to be sorted out in the form of a truce.”

Meanwhile the meeting while discussing the arrangements made for the Games, formally re-inducted Afghanistan, bringing to eight the total number of countries that will be taking part in the regional event.

Sayed Mahmood Zia Dashti, of the Afghanistan delegation, told Dawn through an interpreter that he was happy his country was back in the SAF fray.

Afghanistan are likely to compete in volleyball, basketball, karate, table tennis and football in the SAF Games, Dashti said. He however was undecided if they would choose to train in India or Pakistan in the run-up to the Games. “Whichever country offers us better facilities, we’ll train there.”

A generous offer to them came from Gen Arif, who said they could choose to come to Pakistan anytime they liked before the Games and would be provided all the training facilities they require.

The 9th SAF Games have had to be postponed twice, first because of the events that followed 9/11 and then again when tensions between Pakistan and India brought the two nations to the brink of war over the disputed Kashmir region.

The house Thursday hoped that the Games would now finally go ahead and Gen Arif took the opportunity to thank Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for giving Pakistan a chance to stage the 9th edition by sacrificing their turns.