India for regional mutual legal asistance treaty

New Delhi, Apr 2: Setting the stage for the 14th SAARC Summit here from tomorrow, India today proposed to draft a regional Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to South Asian countries to fight terrorism and drug-trafficking in the region.

Briefing reporters here on the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting ahead of the two-day summit, Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon said Sri Lanka had offered to host a meeting of SAARC nations to discuss matters connected with mutual legal assistance.

He said it was clear that all member-nations were determined to fight terrorism in the region in all its forms and manifestations.

Sri Lanka, he noted, had proposed for strengthening of the regional convention on suppression of terrorism in view of recent spurt in terrorist activities in the region, particularly in the island nation, where the LTTE recently made air strikes on an air base near Colombo Airport.

There was unanimity among SAARC members on the need for taking coordinated steps to stamp out terrorism from the region.

Another important decision taken by the SAARC Council of Ministers was to arrive at a consensus on the operationalisation of the SAARC Development Fund.

SAARC Foreign Secretaries had yesterday failed to reach an understanding on this ticklish issue and left it for their Foreign Ministers to take a decision on it.

Mr Menon said the fund would start utilising 300 million Dollars already available with the grouping. It would mobilise funds from outside the region also for poverty alleviation and other social and developmental issues.''The fund would be the exlcusive domain of the SAARC countries.'' On the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement, Mr Menon admitted that there were differences on its operationalisation but expressed the hope that all contentious issues would be resolved to the satisfaction of member countries.

''it is our desire to take SAFTA to the next level,'' he added.

Terrorism and Connectivity were among the issues that dominated the first half of the SAARC Ministerial Conference here today.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, Mr Rohitha Bogollagama (Sri Lanka), Mrs Sahana Pradhan (Nepal), Dr Ahmed Shahid (Maldives), Mr Lyonpo Ugyen Tsherin (Bhutan), and Dr Iftekar Ahmed Chowdhary (Foreign Advisor of Bangladesh) participated in the day-long Ministerial conference.

Although Afghanistan will be formally inducted as the eighth member of SAARC tomorrow, Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta also attended.

The Foreign Ministers continued their deliberations after a SAFMA lunch.

The sources said at the two-day Foreign Secretaries' meeting which concluded yesterday, there was a proposal for Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties among member countries. However, Pakistan objected to the extradition clause in the Treaty saying it was a bilateral issue and should be discussed at bilateral meetings and not at multi-lateral fora.

Mr Menon said yesterday that India had recommended that strong measures be taken against terrorism and see what further action could be taken against the scourge.

He, however, did not go into the details saying fight against terrorism was an ongoing process and the issue would be discussed at the Foreign Ministers' meeting as well as the Summit on April 3-4.

UNI