SAARC summit ends with pledge to fight poverty in South Asia

DHAKA, Monday (AFP) The leaders of seven South Asian nations closed a summit with a promise to give renewed urgency to fight the poverty that afflicts millions across the region.

The leaders of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the two-day South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

In a closing address, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said she believed the Dhaka meet would mark a watershed and herald real improvements in the lives of the region's 1.4 billion population, millions of whom live in abject poverty.

"Let us assume responsibility to make SAARC a confident instrument of cooperation to our countries' and our peoples' benefit," she said, adding that the summit was declaring the next 10 years the "SAARC decade of poverty alleviation".

"I have every confidence that it will open a new chapter in the history of South Asia," she said. In addition to tackling poverty, the leaders also agreed to set up a disaster preparedness centre in the Indian capital New Delhi following two devastating natural disasters in the region - December's killer tsunami and last month's Kashmir earthquake.

An agreement was also reached to allow Afghanistan to join the SAARC grouping.

The seven nations further agreed on a range of joint strategies aimed at combating terrorism, according to the summit declaration which was formally adopted at the closing session.

On the economic front, it was agreed that all negotiations on outstanding issues that have held up the implementation of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) would be concluded by the end of November. This would ensure that the pact would come into effect as originally planned on January 1, 2006.

The deal will create the world's biggest free trade area and is seen as the best hope of raising living standards in South Asia.

A proposal by India for a South Asian open skies agreement that would remove restrictions on flights operated by state-owned and private airlines from seven countries would also be examined by SAARC officials.

Earlier the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that Afghanistan would join the SAARC Association..

"We welcome Afghanistan to our group," Singh said in a brief statement summarising the pledges and agreements achieved by the summit.

"This is an appropriate recognition of the long ties of culture and history that Afghanistan shares with us," he added.

Meanwhile India and Pakistan exchanged frosty words as the South Asian summit ended in the Bangladesh capital casting doubt over whether the group would be able to overcome differences between its two biggest members.

"There is clearly a trust deficit between the two countries," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told reporters in Dhaka.

He said that as far as Pakistan was concerned, the core dispute with India was over divided Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quick to respond, agreeing about the lack of trust between the two countries and accusing Pakistan of failing to live up to its obligations to end violence in India by Pakistan-based militants.

"There has been some reduction but unfortunately it is our feeling that all that needs to be done has not been done," he told reporters. He said the two sides needed to build up trust.

The remarks of the Indian and Pakistani leaders came a day after they held bilateral talks that produced no breakthrough in the slow-moving peace process between the two countries.

Aziz said the tensions between India and Pakistan were the main reason for SAARC's failure to achieve more.

"SAARC is mired in conflict, you cannot deny it," he said. "The truth is we need to take issues head-on and come up with solutions, whether it's Pakistan-India or any other countries in the region.

"We must make progress on Kashmir and then we can move in parallel on other issues," he added. "We do not subscribe to the view that let's do everything else and Kashmir will resolve itself. For sustainable peace, we must address Kashmir."

The summit marks the 20th anniversary of SAARC's creation in Dhaka in 1985 with the aim of reducing poverty and forging economic cooperation.

South Asia is home to half the world's poor, with 40 percent living on less than a dollar a day, according to the World Bank.

The next summit will take place in India.