June 7, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, June 6: Foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India, Riaz Khokhar and Kanwal Sibal, are likely to meet on the sidelines of an extraordinary session of the Saarc Standing Committee next month.

This would be the first foreign secretary level contact between the two countries since Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s peace talks offer to Pakistan on April 18, and subsequent reconciliatory moves by both sides to normalise 16 months of tense relations.

The extraordinary session of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Standing Committee, comprising foreign secretaries of the seven-member states, would be held in Katmandu, diplomatic sources told Dawn on Friday.

“Currently dates for the extraordinary session are being worked out but it is most likely to take place in the second week of July,” these sources said.

“Basically the meeting has been convened by the Saarc secretary-general to discuss budgetary and administrative matters but there is bound to be discussion on the next (12th) Saarc summit to be held in Pakistan,” a senior official involved in the Saarc process said.

The extraordinary session of the Saarc Standing Committee takes place in the absence of its regular session, which is convened ahead of the summit to decide about its agenda. A senior diplomat explained that the coming session was termed extraordinary because the dates for the next summit were yet to be finalised.

Last month the Pakistan government had proposed to convene the summit in Islamabad in the first half of December. The dates were officially communicated to the Saarc Secretariat in Katmandu.