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Kumaratunga impressed by Indo-Pak struggle to be pals

P Mohan Das in Nuwara Eliya

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga Thursday hailed the efforts of India and Pakistan for friendship based on a "shared vision of peace, stability and prosperity for their people."

Inaugurating the 21st session of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation council of ministers meeting in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka, in the morning, Kumaratunga, who is the SAARC chairperson, described the Lahore declaration as a welcome step.

''The leaders of these two great countries have opened a new path that their people would tread with growing confidence in the years to come,'' she said.

Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and his counterparts from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka are attending the meeting, while Nepal and Bhutan are represented by their environment and finance ministers respectively.

The two-day meeting is being held at the president's cottage in this picturesque town amidst tight security.

Kumaratunga said, in strengthening people-to-people contact, the inauguration of the bus service between New Delhi and Lahore was an important step. Since the July summit, several important developments in "our region have shown the determination of our people and the government to work for prosperity."

Even during the last summit, the international spotlight was sharply focussed on South Asia. Just two months before the Colombo summit, India and Pakistan had proved their nuclear capability.

''The dark clouds that have sometimes cast their shadows on our path towards friendship and co-operation are now being dispelled,'' she said, ''Fresh winds are blowing across our region. They bring in their wake the assurance of a propitious new era that will ease the constraints on our working together for greater happiness, progress and prosperity of all our people.''

There is no dispute that the SAARC has travelled far since its cautious, even modest, start. ''We need to take effective measures to ensure that our intra-regional trade grows meaningfully in response to the preferential arrangements that have been put in place. We need to ensure that the co-operative atmosphere now prevalent leads to the flow of greater intra-regional investment and to the establishment of joint ventures. We in the SAARC must determine how best we can contribute to global prosperity, both in the interest of our region as well as in that of the international community,'' she said.

Touching upon international issues, she said the primary responsibility of the SAARC is to articulate effectively those issues that are of collective concern to South Asia. At the last United Nations general assembly session, "we took a significant step in that direction on the nuclear issue. We have begun this process in other international fora on environmental and social issues."

The SAARC chairperson said Sri Lanka has been involving itself in the process of promoting good relations within the region. In December, the country signed a free trade agreement with India aimed at expanding trade, harmonious development of national economies and bilateral economic relations.

''The prime minister of India and I were confident that it would contribute to strengthening intra-regional economic co-operation," Kumaratunga said, adding that her country wanted similar agreements with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The South Asian nations are not unique in their contribution to UN and its family of special agencies. To illustrate this, she mentioned the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation, and a few others.

Kumaratunga said the absence of a level-playing field for developing nations is a matter of concern for the SAARC nations.

''The SAARC must rapidly habituate ourselves to the collective formulation and presentation of our views on all matters of concern to us at all relevant international gatherings. A combination of forceful advocacy during the general sessions of the specialised agencies of the UN family along with active engagement in their technical programme through imaginatively fashioned MoU.

''We should have the flexibility to discuss matters arising from outside our region that are common concern to us. On some of them, such as the need for non-discriminatory universal nuclear disarmament, our views within SAARC are already identical. In areas where our views are not identical, let us try to fashion consensus, including on minimising situations in which SAARC countries vie against one another for international posts," the prime minister said.

UNI

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