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Lanka hopes for resolution to India-Pakistan dispute

NEW DELHI, Friday (AFP) Sri Lanka hopes India and Pakistan will resolve their differences to end a near eight-month standoff in which the nuclear powers have deployed about one million troops on their common borders, Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando said Friday.

In an interview to India's Star News channel, Fernando said he hoped the two South Asian rivals would be able to solve differences over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir bilaterally "as both have nuclear weapons."

"We are all neighbours (but) basically it is a matter for these two countries to settle bilaterally," he said. Fernando also said the India-Pakistan bickering had "cost the region ... on the SAARC front," referring to a regional grouping which clubs Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Modelled on the lines of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was formed in 1985.

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