ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Vajpayee, Sharief likely to meet during SAARC's retreat

Sri Lanka today formally announced that the tenth SAARC summit would be held here from July 29 to 31.

Diplomatic sources said the three-day summit would draw unprecedented attention because of the likely meeting between Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharief.

Though Sri Lanka would like the summit to concentrate on economic issues, it would be clearly overshadowed by the expected meeting between the Indian and Pakistani leaders, they said.

The meeting, the first between Vajpayee and Sharief, would in all probability take place during the customary ''retreat'' of the SAARC leaders. The sources said the ''retreat'' would be a beach resort near Colombo, but declined to give the exact location, apparently for security reasons.

They pointed out that Vajpayee had already written to Sharief, suggesting talks on all bilateral issues during the Colombo SAARC summit and said it would provide the two prime ministers an ideal setting for defusing tension between their countries, escalated since the recent nuclear tests.

A similar meeting between Vajpayee's predecessor, I K Gujral, and Sharief during the ninth summit in Male last year had generated hopes of resumption of secretaries-level talks between the two South Asian neighbours.

However, these hopes were belied because of Pakistan's insistence that Kashmir be discussed before all other outstanding issues.

Unlike during the previous summit, however, the two countries are under tremendous international pressure now to hold talks in the face of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the withholding of loans by international lending organisations following their nuclear tests.

Sri Lanka wanted the summit to concentrate on economic issues, such as globalisation of the economy and the integration of the economies of the SAARC nations with the global market.

Sri Lanka was given the honour of hosting the summit ahead of Nepal and Pakistan to mark the country's 50th anniversary of independence.

Officials said the programming committee of SAARC would meet in Colombo on July 23 and 24 to work out the detailed agenda for the summit.

This would be followed by the meeting of the foreign secretaries of the seven nations on 25th and 26th, which would discuss priority issues and prepare the draft of the SAARC declaration.

The draft would be finalised by the foreign ministers at their meeting on 27 and 28 and presented for the consideration of their leaders.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report