Islamabad: Pakistan today (Dec 26, 2003) ruled out the postponement of next month's SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit in Islamabad in the light of the repeated attempts on the life of President Pervez Musharraf and said "foolproof" security arrangements have been put in place to protect the visiting foreign dignitaries.

Asserting that there was no question of postponing the SAARC summit, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said yesterday's attacks by two suicide bombers and the earlier attempt to blast a bridge on December 14 in which Musharraf narrowly escaped were aimed at destabilising the country and damaging its reputation abroad.

He said the December 14 attack on Musharraf was made barely hours after Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri arrived in the city on a State visit and yesterday's attacks took place just days ahead of the SAARC summit which is scheduled to begin on January 4, 2004.

"We are aware of the intentions of the perpetrators of these attacks. But despite that we have done our best to evolve a strategy to provide foolproof security to all the delegates attending the SAARC summit," Hayat said.

Musharraf himself had allayed apprehensions of any security breaches during the SAARC summit in view of recurrence of terrorist attacks.

Talking to the media after the suicide car bomb attacks he said it was evident from the two attacks that the terrorists were targeting him and not anybody else.