Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir urged the Saarc member states to join hands for eliminating menace of terrorism and narcotics from the region. Addressing the Saarc Council of Ministers meeting here, the Foreign Secretary noted that over recent years, the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) had succeeded in laying a solid foundation for regional co-operation.
He said given the flux in global and regional affairs and the complexity of challenges facing South Asia, Saarc had to introspect on how best to position itself for ensuring development, stability and peace. He said it was important to make Saarc people-oriented, initiate project-based co-operation, and serve as a vehicle to rediscover the treasures and wisdom of the East.
The Foreign Secretary underscored the need for promoting inter-regional, trans-regional development co-operation and export-oriented trade. He said that Pakistan was actively promoting such co-operation, adding that the South Asian states needed to benefit from engines of global economic growth in Asia and be receptive to mutually beneficial links that could accrue from the rise of economic powers contiguous to the Saarc region, like China. The Foreign Secretary stated that multilateral processes were important and long on promise but short in form and format.
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