KATHMANDU: Seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations have agreed to conclude early a free trade accord, implement the Paris agreement on climate change and step up cooperation among their security agencies to combat terrorism.

The foreign ministers of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal on Friday expressed “great concern’” over increasing threats to the planet and peoples’ livelihoods from climate change and agreed to combat it at local, national and regional levels.

They met in the Nepalese capital under the aegis of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or BIMSTEC.

The ministers agreed to expedite the ratification of the BIMSTEC Convention on Cooperation in Combating International Terrorism and Transnational Organised Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2017

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