Tuesday, August 1 2006 17:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Dhaka: With the SAARC Foreign Secretary meeting failing to address India's concerns over SAFTA implementation, the contentious issue will now be taken up at the ministerial-level meeting of the regional grouping here tomorrow.

India yesterday registered its objections to Pakistan's effort to limit trade with New Delhi under the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) and said it was a negation of the agreement and jeopardised implementation of the pact decided upon by the leadership of all seven member countries.

India said the Pakistani move will have bearing on the success of the SAARC process itself.

SAFTA came into effect on July one.

"Pakistan Government had issued a notification regarding tariff concessions extended under it to SAARC countries. The notification limits SAFTA tariff concessions for India to items on the exisiting bilateral positive list," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said.

"This is clearly a violation of Article 23 of the SAFTA agreement," Saran said after the SAARC Foreign Secretary-level meeting here last evening.

"The matter needs to be resolved with "utmost urgency", he added.

"Otherwise, SAFTA may well remain an agreement only in words with no way to implement it," he said.

"This has a bearing on the success of SAARC process itself, affecting all other aspects of cooperation among the member-countries," Saran said.

"Pakistan's action", Saran said.

"Contradicts the public pronouncements made by its leadership who have stated that once SAFTA is operationalised it would constitute a MFN-plus trading regime," he said.

Pointing out that the matter does not concern India alone, although it has been singled out, the Foreign Secretary said the Pakistani action is a negation of SAFTA and jeopardises the implementation of the agreement.

He said Islamabad's move affects all contracting parties and puts a question mark over the future of the agreement.

Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed will represent India at the two-day SAARC Ministerial Level Meeting.

The meeting will provide an opportunity to consider various issues of regional cooperation and a follow-up of the 13th SAARC summit held in Dhaka in November last year.

This would include the areas of trade, commerce, poverty alleviation, social challenges, natural disasters, people-to people contact and cultural cooperation.

Ahamed will also hold bilateral meetings with some of the SAARC Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the event.