Postponement of Saarc summit

Our hearts continue to go out to the millions of people who have been affected by the tsunamis that have devastated the coast-lines of South and South-East Asia. The death toll has now crossed the 100,000 threshold and continues to rise on a daily basis. The fact that three of the countries most heavily hit -- Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldives -- are members of Saarc and are at present mobilising all of their resources and national energy on a relief and rehabilitation programme is by itself understandable ground for postponing the summit.

The summit is a crucial one, and we hope that the Saarc member-states will find it convenient to reconvene at an early date and that the regional cooperation issues which are on the table will be resolved sooner than later.

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It is with regret that we must point out, however, that the situation with respect to the postponement has been handled rather unprofessionally at our end. As the death toll mounted, it became apparent to those of us monitoring the situation that postponement would be almost inevitable.

The foreign ministry, however, continued to deny this would be the case up until the day before the announcement of postponement. The vehement denial followed by the acceptance of the impelling reality comes across as rather amateurish diplomacy, and we would have hoped that the situation would have been addressed in a more mature manner.