July 11, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1424

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KATHMANDU, July 10: The summit of leaders of the South East Asian Association for Regional Cooperation will be held in Islamabad between Jan 4 and Jan 6 in 2004, Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said here on Thursday.

The agreement on the dates was reached at the end of two days of talks among Saarc foreign secretaries in Kathmandu.

The seven-nation summit had been postponed six months ago because of widening rifts between Pakistan and India.

Mr Sibal said that the dates had been proposed by Islamabad.

The SAARC summit was due to be held in January in Islamabad, but Pakistan had postponed it after India did not confirm the attendance of its prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Sibal indicated India would participate in next year’s summit in Islamabad.

“We reached a consensus among all (Saarc) standing committee members. This consensus would not have been reached if India was not going to participate in the summit,” Sibal told reporters.

Sibal said the foreign secretaries had also agreed to present a draft South Asian free trade agreement to be approved by the Islamabad summit, adding that a Saarc committee would finalize the details sometime in September.

Despite various confidence-building measures taken so far, the rift between India and Pakistan remained plainly visible at the conference.

Sibal said he had held bilateral talks in Kathmandu with the foreign secretaries of all Saarc members except Pakistan.

After the morning meeting, the Indian and Pakistani embassies in Kathmandu were to hold lunch receptions at the same time — pre-empting the possibility of an impromptu bilateral chat over tea.

DECISION WELCOMED: Pakistan welcomed the finalization of a date for the 12th summit of Saarc in Islamabad in January.

“We welcome the decision taken by the Saarc foreign secretaries at their meeting in Kathmandu,” foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told AFP in Islamabad.

The meeting in the Nepalese capital earlier Thursday decided on a January 4-6 schedule for the summit to be hosted by Pakistan.

The summit, which was due to be held early this year, was postponed after India did not confirm its participation.

Government officials meanwhile said they hoped no unforeseen problems would crop up again to cloud the atmosphere and the summit would go ahead this time according to schedule.

They said Islamabad was concerned over “conflicting” signals from New Delhi about initiating a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan to address all outstanding issues, including the dispute over Kashmir.

“There is concern here over Indian intentions about opening a dialogue” with Pakistan, a senior government official said.

The official referred to Wednesday’s comments by Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, ruling out an early resumption of bilateral talks.

Mr Sinha said that “meaningful talks” could not coincide with “cross-border terrorism.”

“India seems to be keen on moving forward on certain tracks which are beneficial to New Delhi, and wants to go very slow on tracks where it does not see any interest,” the official said, referring to India’s demand of improving economic ties and restoration of air links between the two countries.

“They want rapid progress on economic fronts but are delaying movement towards dialogue and dragging their feet even on such innocent matters as revival of sporting ties.

“Pakistan does not want segmented dialogue, we want a composite dialogue because all these problems are inter-linked. The first and the foremost is the dispute over Kashmir and the rest follows.” —AFP