Officials of seven South Asian nations will discuss a Sri Lankan proposal in Colombo later this year to strengthen an existing anti-terrorism regional convention by adding a protocol to it, Nepali Foreign Secretary Madhu Raman Acharya said Thursday.

Sri Lanka presented the draft of the protocol at the second and last day of a meeting of seven foreign secretaries of the regional grouping in Kathmandu, Acharya said. He did not divulge details. “But it seeks to add new implementation measures after the 9/11 WTC attack,” Nepal’s top diplomat said.

The region’s top diplomats approved co-operative relationship with the World Bank which has agreed to fund regional programmes to reduce poverty; the level of the Bank funding was not disclosed. SAARC has such a co-operative relationship with Japan.

India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives agreed to open the fifth round of negotiations to strengthen the South Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA) while discussing a free trade zone, Acharya said.

“The present measures were inadequate and member governments were not satisfied and will be discussing further tariff cuts,” he added. Regional countries will meet in Dhaka to prepare a common position on the entry to the WTO before a conference in September this year.

Acharya confirmed the 12th delayed regional summit will be held in Islamabad from January 4 to 6 next year. nepalnews.com br July 10