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| Thursday, 9 December 2004 |
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Indian PM urges closer cooperation among SAARC countries NEW DELHI, Wednesday (AFP) India urged closer cooperation among South Asian countries to raise the living standards of people of the region through eradication of poverty, elimination of disease and ensuring health and employment. "We need to increase economic cooperation, as well as strengthen our cultural affinities and people-to-people bonds to reinforce the capacities and capabilities latent in our region," Indian premier Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency. "India remains committed to working with all other member-countries to realise the aspirations and goals enshrined in the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Charter," he said. "We are as yet far from achieving our collective potential in SAARC," he said. SAARC, which groups Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was founded in 1985 to forge economic solidarity and boost standards of living among the region's 1.4 billion people. Singh said the people of South Asia should work purposefully "to harness human capital and natural resources towards ensuring security, eradicating poverty, eliminating disease, hunger and ensuring health, education and employment for all." Meanwhile Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan's chairmanship of SAARC had instilled a sense of confidence and commitment in the regional grouping to further the regional cooperation. "We have been able to instill a sense of renewed confidence and commitment to the realization of the SAARC goals and to surveying new horizons for mutually beneficial regional cooperation," Aziz said in a message on the 19th anniversary of the signing of the SAARC Charter. Aziz said as current Chairman of SAARC Pakistan has endeavoured to broaden and deepen regional cooperation as well as enhance SAARC's global profile. "The Government and the people of Pakistan remain firm in our resolve to jointly endeavour for a peaceful, progressive and prosperous South Asia," he said. Aziz called for bridging iniquities within the SAARC region so that the benefits of development are spread evenly in South Asia. "Benefits of cooperation for development must be spread evenly in South Asia to ensure a region-wide uplift of the quality of life of our peoples," he said. Pakistan, he said, has an abiding commitment to the realization of the goals and objectives of the SAARC Charter. Guided by the Charter, Pakistan has always made sincere efforts to promote peace, stability, amity and progress in the region, he said. |
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