Seoul: India on November 12 said Pakistan's plan to set a "deadline" for New Delhi to respond to the proposed summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co- operation (SAARC) would not work.

"Nobody can set a deadline. SAARC works on the basis of consensus," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, who is in Seoul to participate in the second ministerial Conference of Democracies, said.

"One country cannot set a deadline for another," Sinha said reacting to a Pakistan Foreign Ministry statement.

Pakistan foreign office spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan had said that Islamabad, the host of the SAARC summit, would soon set a "deadline" for India and Bhutan to respond on the proposed SAARC summit in January. Islamabad maintains that five of the seven SAARC members have okayed the January 11 to 13 dates proposed by Pakistan for the summit.

PTI