With the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Foreign Secretary meeting failing to address India's concerns over the South Asia Free Trade Area implementation, the contentious issue will now be taken up at the ministerial-level meeting of the regional grouping in Dhaka on Wednesday.
On Monday, India registered its objections to Pakistan's effort to limit trade with New Delhi under the SAFTA and said it was a negation of the agreement and jeopardised implementation of the pact decided upon by the leadership of all seven member countries.
India said the Pakistani move will have bearing on the success of the SAARC process itself. SAFTA came into effect on July 1.
Pakistan government had issued a notification regarding tariff concessions extended under it to SAARC countries. The notification limits SAFTA tariff concessions for India to items on the exisiting bilateral positive list, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said.
"This is clearly a violation of Article 23 of the SAFTA agreement," Saran said after the SAARC Foreign Secretary-level meeting in Dhaka on Monday evening. The matter needs to be resolved with 'utmost urgency', he added.
"Otherwise, SAFTA may well remain an agreement only in words with no way to implement it," he said.
"This has a bearing on the success of SAARC process itself, affecting all other aspects of cooperation among the member-countries," Saran said.
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