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India to join sAARC summit in Islamabad

Ap, Kathmandu
India and Pakistan have agreed yesterday that their leaders would attend SAARC summit in January aimed at tackling the region's poverty and free trade problems.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, which can't hold a summit unless all seven member countries are present, will hold its next top-level gathering in Islamabad, Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said.
A SAARC committee "has reached a consensus to hold the summit from Jan. 4-6," Sibal said after a meeting of the group's
senior foreign ministry officials in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The summit will be preceded by meetings of others bodies from December 29 this year.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf have not spoken since the last SAARC summit in Kathmandu in January 2002. India refused to attend a summit scheduled for this past January in Pakistan.
The decision on the next summit was reached even though Sibal and his Pakistani counterpart didn't shake hands at Wednesday's meeting. The foreign secretaries of
Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives also attended the meeting.
Vajpayee recently spoke with Pakistan's Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on phone, and the two countries have made tentative steps toward normalising their relations in recent times.
But the road to the January summit isn't likely to be smooth. Even as Sibal announced the agreement yesterday, he criticised Pakistan as being "the slowest in moving for ward in the area of economic cooperation."
SAARC, which includes onefifth of the world's population, was formed in 1985 to promote trade between member nations. Founders hoped it would help fight the region's chronic poverty.
However, progress has been held up due to the tensions in Jammu and Kashmir. SAARC missed deadlines in 2001 and 2002 for a proposed free trade treaty, and the January 2002 summit was held three years late.
On Wednesday, Sibal pressed Pakistan to do more to stop terrorists who cross from Pakistani territory into Jammu and Kashmir.
"We expect that more concrete and credible steps can be taken on the issue of infiltration and the infrastructure of terrorism, and that will open doors to a dialogue," Sibal said. Islamabad denies India's claims that it provides material support to terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir.