13th SAARC summit opens in Dhaka
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-11-12 16:20

The much awaited 13th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) opened here Saturday with a vision to address major issues of the region including poverty alleviation, environmental hazards, disaster prevention and terrorism.

The summit, postponed twice, was declared open at about 11:30 a. m.(05:30 GMT) in the Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Center by Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister of Pakistan, the current chair country of SAARC.

After delivering a speech, Aziz handed over the chair of SAARC to Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Leaders from Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka arrived in Dhaka on Friday to join the two-day summit to push the regional grouping into the third decade termed as the decade of implementation.

(L-R) Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh observe a minute of silence in remembrance for the last year's tsunami and recent earthquake victims during the inaugural session of the 13th South Asian Association form Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Dhaka. [AFP]

Poverty alleviation, fighting terrorism, disaster management, introduction of South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), expansion of SAARC would be the prime issues of this summit.

The summit is expected to give an outline of a "new vision" for addressing major issues and charting a road map for economic integration of South Asian nations to improve the lot of nearly 1. 5 billion people inhabiting the region.

SAARC was launched in 1985 with a pledge of ensure peace, strengthening the regional cooperation and to adopt common strategies and programs to bring about a positive change into the lives of nearly 1.5 billion people in South Asia.

However, some analysts say that in the last 20 years SAARC has failed to materialize its vision because of political and territorial disputes among some member countries.

With the improvement in the relationship between the two key players of the region, India and Pakistan, it is expected that from this summit SAARC would get a fresh momentum and ultimately become an effective regional grouping.

The Bangladeshi government has beefed up security to an unprecedented level by deploying over 30,000 security personnel and closing some artery roads ahead of the summit.