A meeting of SAARC foreign ministers have reached an agreement on a landmark South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) pact to be signed at the seven-nation Summit beginning Sunday, agencies reported from Islamabad Friday.
“Member countries of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) have sorted out their differences over SAFTA and it will be signed during the Summit,” the agency reports quoted Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, as saying.
Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives had reportedly raised serious objections to SAFTA, arguing that it was unfair to smaller, less developed countries, the the reports said.
Foreign secretaries of SAARC had failed to reach an agreement Thursday and referred it to their foreign ministers, according to the reports.
“The differences have been ironed out at the meeting of the Council of Ministers,” Kasuri said.
After signing the SAFTA pact, SAARC countries would be in a better position to cooperate with each other, he said. “This would be a mile stone in the history of SAARC.”