6, April 2005	Wednesday	26 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 5: Asian ministers on Tuesday called for cooperation that went beyond economics to achieve a genuine integration of the countries of their diverse region stretching from the Middle East to the Pacific. Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo told a seminar ahead of a meeting here of ministers from 26 Asian states that the future held great promise but also “huge problems and enormous challenges”.

“If the politics don’t catch up with the economics, many things can go wrong. We need leadership, we need institutions, we need cooperation in many dimensions,” he said.

The Asian ministers will meet on Wednesday under the umbrella of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), a body set up in 2002 to promote pan-Asian cooperation unencumbered by the many thorny political issues that have restricted such efforts in the past.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will open the fourth ministerial conference of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue on Wednesday. Premier Wen Jiabao of China, which hosted last year’s meeting, will be the keynote speaker at the opening session.

Mr Yeo said the Sept 11 attacks in 2001 had created a gulf between the West and the Middle East, while at the same time political reform and market liberalisation had brought Middle Eastern states closer to the rest of Asia.

He said the region was still fraught with uncertainty and risk, with problems including North Korea, the China-Taiwan dispute, the Kashmir issue, Iran’s nuclear programme and Iraqi reconstruction.

But, he added, the countries of Asia were now talking about forming a free trade area and there were more links in terms of road, railways and shipping.

“We are witnessing a major change in global economic polarity,” he said. “Then we need our economists to meet, we need to mix political leaders and business leaders.”

DIVERSITY: Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said there was a common desire to move towards regional integration.

“Though it is driven by economics, it is not merely an economic process,” he said.

Mr Kasuri said the region had complex, long-standing differences, but collective progress was not about the past.

“We can and must steer this diversity and differences towards shared collective values and objectives,” he said.

Key areas for more cooperation were agriculture, trade, finance and energy, he said, adding that steps could include meetings of finance and trade ministers, central bankers and regular consultations between chambers of commerce and stock exchanges.

BETTER FUTURE: Meanwhile, Mr Kasuri said in a statement that the ACD forum was a way of “shaping the events for a better future for the people of this continent and to promote peace and cooperation in Asia”.

Mr Kasuri held meetings on Tuesday with counterparts from a number of countries including China’s Li, the statement said.

“Ways and means of improving bilateral relations between various countries and Pakistan were discussed,” it added.

Foreign ministers from 17 countries will attend the ACD along with senior officials from other nations.

However Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh is not coming because of his other diplomatic engagements.—Agencies