DHAKA, 2 August 2006 — Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday made a fervent call to unlock South Asia’s true potential through faster and deeper economic integration so that the region could play its due part in this Asian resurgence in the new era.

The 21st century is Asia’s, said Khaleda, also the current SAARC chairperson, as the foreign ministers of the member-countries met in Dhaka to execute some of the major decisions taken in the forum’s recent summit.

It is the 27th session of the SAARC Council of Ministers, which is scheduled to dispose of the applications of the United States, the European Union and South Korea for observer status in the fast-expanding forum, besides taking other executive decisions in core areas of cooperation.

“We are happy to see progress in the implementation of South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA). Dividends of economic benefits can play a crucial role in furthering regional cooperation. We must take up high-visibility projects and programs involving people from all sections of our societies. These could be precursor to a South Asian Economic Union,” she said inaugurating the two-day meet at Hotel Sheraton in the afternoon.

In this context, she mentioned the South Asian Development Fund, which she said can play an effective role in helping the economic integration of the nations to happen. In its third decade, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) can be the vehicle for building a peaceful and economically prosperous South Asia, she noted.

“Globalization is forcing nations to face multifaceted challenges, individually and collectively. These require us to take hard and swift decisions and also to ensure their early implementation,” the SAARC chair told the Council of Ministers.

This was the overriding sprit that had motivated the SAARC leaders at the 13th Summit, held in Dhaka, to declare that SAARC’s third decade would be ‘a decade of implementation’, she informed the function.

In order to fulfill this obligation, Khaleda urged the foreign ministers to get down to finalizing the document on SAARC Vision for the Third Decade for adoption at the next Summit. She requested the Council to accord the highest priority to this matter and to place their considered recommendations at the next summit, scheduled for New Delhi.

The current chair of the SAARC Council of Ministers and Bangladesh Foreign Minister, M. Morshed Khan, Indian State Minister for External Affairs E. Ahamed and SAARC Secretary -General Lympo Chenkyab Dorjee also spoke in the inaugural session.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan have agreed to pursue the present peace process and make efforts so the process is not in anyway adversely affected. The agreement came at talks between Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Sharan and his Pakistan counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan yesterday.

“(The) peace process between the two countries is important and all possible efforts should be made to see that the process is not anyway adversely affected,” Shyam Sharan told journalists after nearly one-hour talks on the sidelines of the talks.

In reply to a question, he said all aspects of bilateral relations were discussed at the meeting. Asked about any date for further meeting on composite dialogue, Sharan said they agreed to be in touch. Riaz Khan described the talks as “positive “ and “good meeting.” Echoing the sentiment of his Indian counterpart, Khan said the peace process is important for both the countries.

“We’re all convinced that peace is important. There is no other option but to pursue it.”

Riaz Khan also said that India and Pakistan need to resolve their decades-old dispute over Kashmir and not just learn to live with the problem. “We are hoping that a situation has come where it is very important to also address a number of issues including of course the Kashmir issue,” Riaz Khan told reporters.

“We should address them for their resolution because it is important that we should not simply learn to live with problems. We should try to learn to resolve problems,” Riaz Khan said.