14th SAARC Summit to focus on terrorism, 'Connectivity'

New Delhi, Apr 1 (UNI) The 14th SAARC Summit of Heads of State/Government here on Tuesday and Wednesday, will focus on the theme of terrorism and 'Connectivity'--political, economic, and of ideas and people--considering the ''shared destiny'' of the regional countries.

This is the third time that India is hosting the meet. India had first time organised it in 1986 and later in 1995.

Although terrorism has been one of the main concerns of the region, it is likely to receive more attention at the Summit in the wake of the recent LTTE air strike on a Sri Lankan air base which brought a new dimension to the issue of terrorism.

Sri Lanka is expected to raise the issue at the Summit which will deliberate on what needs to be done more to fight the scourge.

India will move the theme of 'Connectivity' at the Summit in ''very concrete terms,'' officials said.

Focus will also be on 'rationalisation' of SAARC activities with stress on implementation of various programmes and policies of the grouping.

It was time to move from ''declaratory phase to implementation phase,'' Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said.

Afghanistan will be formally admitted to the Grouping as its eighth member.

For the first time, representatives from the US, China, Japan, the European Union (EU) and the Republic of Korea will attend the Plenary and the closing ceremonies as 'Observers.' Iran is also expected to attend as an observer.The Foreign Secretaries at the Standing Committee meeting yesterday unanimously agreed to give an observer status to Iran.

The matter will, however, be taken up at the Foreign Ministers meeting on April 2.

The Observer countries could also present papers at the Summit if they are represented at the Ministerial level, officials said.

Officials said it was time for focussing on infrastructure development for physical connectivity, freer trade and investment for economic connectivity and greater connectivity and freer movement of people for promoting people-to-people contacts.

Mr Menon said that at the 13th Summit in Dhaka, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had mooted several proposals. These include SAARC car rally (which is now on), setting up of a Disaster Management Centre, a regional Tele-Medicine Network Project, setting up of a Regional Food Bank, SAARC Museum and centre for handicrafts and a SAARC university which would be a seat for higher learning.

The Tele-Medicine project would start with a pilot project while the SAARC museum would be temporarily set up at the Craft's Centre at Pragati Maidan and later shifted to a separate building, officials said.

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