New Delhi: The visit of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Pakistan to attend
the forthcoming South Asian Association of Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit was
still under the consideration of the government, Minister of State for External
Affairs Digvijay Singh told Rajya Sabha on November 28.
To a number of questions on what diplomatic moves New Delhi was taking to desist
Islamabad from raking the Kashmir issue at the summit, the Minister said under the
SAARC charter, bilateral and contentious issues were excluded from deliberations.
On whether there was slowdown in the progress of the economic co-operation in the
regional grouping, Singh told the House in a written reply though South Asian
Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA) framework treaty had been signed in 1993, till
date full operationalisation of the agreement had not taken place.
He said besides this, SAARC had missed the deadline of 2001 for a framework treaty
for South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) adding that the new deadline now had been
extended to 2002 which was also likely to be not met.
PTI
