SAARC likely to engage more observers

ADDU CITY (Maldives), Nov 9 (BSS): The eight-nation south Asian regional block, SAARC, is likely to engage more observers for the greater benefit of the 26-year old organisation and revamp its activities after the 17th summit scheduled here for November 10 and 11, diplomatic sources hinted here today. The foreign secretaries of the eight South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka- have unanimously taken a resolution on Tuesday to give Turkey an Observer status, which eight countries and the European Union are now enjoining. But senior diplomats of the south Asia, home to 1.6 billion people, feel an urgency to give SAARC Observer status to more countries to widen the SAARC activities and engage civil society organisations to infuse dynamism into the regional block. "More and more countries and organisations are keen to get engaged in the SAARC and it has become essential to find a mechanism to engage them effectively for the greater interest of south Asian countries and the block itself," foreign secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes told journalists at the end of the two-day foreign secretary level meeting here. Mijarul Quayes said the foreign secretaries, who together represent the SAARC Standing Committee, have discussed few options for observers' effective engagement into the SAARC. "The leadership of SAARC is hopefully going to give an observer status to Turkey during the 17th summit in the city," Maldives Permanent Secretary and chairman of SAARC standing committee, Mohamed Naseer, said on Tuesday. He said the eight-member SAARC has nine observers. Those are: United States, Japan, China, Australia, Iran, South Korea, Mauritius and Myanmar and the 25-member European Union. With Turkey becoming a new observer, SAARC, which stands for SAARC, will have 10 observers in total. This number is likely to grow further as a number of influential and strategic countries are on the pipeline for SAARC Observer status, said another diplomat on the sidelines of standing committee meeting held at Equatorial Convention centre. But he did not say how many countries are on the queue. Naseer said the South Asian Forum, a platform for civil society engagement, would be patronised and encouraged to flourish and get new ideas from them to strengthen SAARC, which tuned into a being in 1985 in Dhaka with an objective for regional prosperity through mutual trust and multilateralism.