The Hindu : SAARC is different: Sinha

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 23, 2002

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SAARC is different: Sinha

By Amit Baruah

KATHMANDU Aug. 22. The External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, today said that he would not speak on India-Pakistan relations on Nepalese soil and repeatedly stressed that ties between New Delhi and Islamabad should not hamper the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) process.

Disclosing that an Indian proposal to have annual SAARC summits in January had been agreed upon, Mr. Sinha said that for the next summit in Islamabad, New Delhi had proposed that the meeting be held anytime between January 5 and 20. The exact dates would be worked out through diplomatic channels. Instead of having a debate on dates every year, the SAARC Council of Ministers had agreed to recommend to the next summit that the Heads of State/Government meet, say, from the second Monday or second Saturday of January every year.

Asked if the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, would travel to Pakistan if cross-border terrorism continued, Mr. Sinha said that one should be able to distinguish between SAARC and India-Pakistan issues. "You keep India-Pakistan out of it,'' he said at the end of the two-day meeting of the SAARC Council of Ministers.

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