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Kathmandu Saturday December 29, 2001 Paush 14, 2058.
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Pre-Summit meet begins
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Dec 28 – The SAARC process leading
to the 11th Summit beginning January 4 kicked off on Friday with the officials from the
seven member states holding a Programming Committee meeting.
The Programming Committee decides the agenda which
has to be endorsed by the Standing Committee (Foreign Secretary-level) and then by the
SAARC Council of (Foreign) Ministers.
Briefing the media about the deliberations of the
27th meeting of the Programming Committee, Pushkar Rajbhandari, Joint Secretary at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the meeting discussed 10 agenda. Before the
proceedings started in earnest, the outgoing Chairperson Ms Sarala Fernando handed over
the Chair to Nepal’s Gyan Chandra Acharya, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
The meeting reviewed the progress made by the seven
technical committees and five regional centres. Rajbhandari also said the meeting reviewed
the progress of the projects made under SAARC-Japan Special Fund. Japan has provided Rs 5
million as fund for various projects.
The committee also discussed a proposal of
increasing the emoluments of the staff working in the regional centres. The committee that
would meet for its concluding day tomorrow was working on its report that would be
presented to the Standing Committee which would sit for its own three-day meeting,
beginning Sunday. The next two days are for the meeting of Council of Ministers.
When asked about the atmosphere at the meeting in
the backdrop of recent escalation of tension between India and Pakistan, Rajbhandari
replied that it was cordial. "There was no animosity at all between them (Indian and
Pakistani delegates) during the meeting," he said.
Replying to yet another question, the Joint
Secretary said "the situation has not arisen as yet" for Nepal to urge India to
make exception for the passage of Gen Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, through its
air space. On Thursday, India announced that it would not allow any Pakistani aircraft to
enter its air space from January 1.
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