ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: A review of the Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism will be one of the key items on the agenda of meetings preceding the 12th Saarc summit in Islamabad, informed sources said.

The convention came into force in 1988 following its ratification by the member states Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

It will be taken up at the two-day meeting of the Saarc standing committee to be held on Dec 31 with Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar in the chair. The recommendations of the committee will be considered by the council of ministers.

On a proposal made by Sri Lanka after 9/11, the member states had decided that an additional protocol would be included in the convention on suppression of terrorism. A draft of the protocol was prepared by Sri Lanka in May 2002. While there was general agreement on it an impasse was created as Pakistan and India called for certain modifications in its preamble.

Pakistan proposed that the language of the protocol be changed and suggested that the formulation approved by the 13th Non-Aligned Movement summit in February 2003 be adopted instead. The NAM summit of the 116 member countries had concluded that attempts made to equate legitimate freedom struggles by people under alien occupation or foreign domination should be avoided.

India, on the other hand, proposed that in the additional protocol the member states shall take certain steps and make amendments to domestic legislation, if required, to ensure that criminal acts by terrorists were not justified by domestic, political, ideological or religious considerations.

In November, India proposed that a meeting be convened to discuss the matter between the representatives of the interior ministries. Sources said such a meeting was under consideration.

The convention provides for a regional focus on many of the well-established principles of international law in respect of terrorist offences. Under the convention, the member states have to make necessary arrangements for extradition or prosecution of alleged offenders and sharing of information, intelligence and freezing of assets of designated terrorist outfits.

At the Kathmandu summit in January 2002, all South Asian leaders had flayed terrorism but differed on its definition. While all backed the international coalition against terrorism, some called for a careful review of its root causes.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee accused “some countries” of not taking action to implement the convention. “We in South Asia have to recognize that our cooperative future will be significantly influenced by the way in which we can tackle terrorism together,” he said.

President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan was fully committed to the convention but argued: “A concerted campaign against terrorism must also identify and examine the causes that breed terrorism, that drive people to hopelessness and desperation.”

He emphasized the need for maintaining a distinction between acts of legitimate resistance and freedom struggles on the one hand and acts of terrorism on the other.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga called for a more “honest” approach to deal with terrorism. She said it was insufficient to say that terrorists would be hunted down without an understanding of the causes.

“We must attempt to understand the deep-rooted cause of this most unnatural, de-humanising phenomenon very specific to the 20th century, that is terrorism,” Ms Kumaratunga stated.