Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Monday said a new world forum was emerging to discuss issues of poverty and development between the industralised developed nations and the developing and poor nations and the informal summit of G8 was a pointer in this direction.
The informal meeting in Evian, to which he was specially invited by French President Jacques Chirac, was a unique occasion when select leaders of the developing world interacted with G8 countries on a number of political, economic, social and environmental concerns exercising the developing world, he told reporters at the conclusion of week-long three-nation tour.
"It has created a forum of communication at the highest level between the developed and the developing world. I think this idea holds great promise for a new kind of cooperative North-South dialogue," he said.
Vajpayee said he had the opportunity to see the reported tensions between France and the US after the Iraq war and also the realisation among the leaders of the two groups that there was a need for all of them to be good in interest of the world at large.
Lauding the French initiative at the G8 to bring some other nations into the G8, Vajpayee said it could be due to the realisation that the impact of the G8 was reducing and the need to discuss the problems of the developing countries.
The initiative was taken even before the Iraq war, he added.
Vajpayee said during the short trip he has had a good understanding of the global picture that was emerging. His meetings with all the P5 leaders (Russia, France, China, Britain and the US) during a day sent a message that the globe was now small and that India has a position in it.
"It looks like a new world forum was being started," he said, adding that till now there were two groups -- the developed and the developing world. A new organisation has now been formed to look after the whole world," he added.
"For the first time in a global meet I heard that they (G8) want to address poverty and assist (the poor nations)," he said.
Vajpayee said there was a lot of talk about corruption in the G8 which sometimes made him wonder whether he was in Indian Parliament.
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