India seeks coop among SAARC nations on tackling terrorism

Ajay Kaul
Islamabad, Jun 26 (PTI) Warning that the South Asian
region is faced with a "serious" security situation, India
Saturday sought fullest cooperation among SAARC countries in
sharing information on potential terrorists and planned acts
of terrorism to create a more secure environment.
"The increasing threat of terrorism poses a major
challenge to the maintenance of peace and security and
adversely affects economic development in our region," Indian
Home Minister P Chidambaram said while addressing the SAARC
Home Ministers' Conference here.
"We can all undoubtedly agree that the South Asian
region is faced with a serious security situation," he told
the meeting being attended by the ministers from Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives, besides
India and Pakistan.
Chidambaram made it clear that it was only with the
"fullest cooperation among our countries that we will be in
position to effectively tackle the grave threat of terrorism
in our region."
He also made a strong pitch for examining whether the
existing conventions have been effective.
"We also need to cooperate each other in sharing
information on potential terrorists and planned acts of
terrorism, and all other forms of criminal activities in order
to create more secure environment," he said.
"It is incumbent upon us to ensure that the
instruments and the resources at our disposal are put to the
best possible use in our fight against terrorism," he added.
Chidambaram commended his Pakistani counterpart Rehman
Malik for his opening remarks in which the latter highlighted
the threat of terrorism and especially the fallout of 9/11
attacks in New York and the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai.
Both Chidambaram and Malik had meetings yesterday
which was dominated by the issue of terrorism and action
against the perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks. MORE PTI