The Hindu : International : `We need to jointly deal with terrorism'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 01, 2004

International

International

`We need to jointly deal with terrorism'

By K.Venugopal

BANGKOK, JULY 31. Security and the state of law and order are a pre-requisite to sustaining economic development. "We need to deal jointly with the menace of terrorism," the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said here today at the BIMST-EC summit meeting.

Terrorism was an issue all leaders seemed spontaneously to draft into their discussions, and it also found play in the joint declaration at the end of the summit.

The member countries agreed to set up a joint working group on counter-terrorism, and pledged not to allow the use of their territory by terrorists to launch attacks on friendly governments.

The question of revising the terms of the Open Skies Policy for flights to Asian countries would be discussed in the Cabinet soon. At a press conference later, Dr. Singh said the Governments of Thailand and Singapore had drawn his attention to the fact that the terms that now allow overseas airlines to fly more often into designated airports were not flexible enough. He said he had promised them that he would look into that.

Renamed, no hyphen

Leaders of the seven-nation BIMST-EC not only renamed themselves at the summit meeting here today but enlarged their scope beyond trade and the economy. The name of the grouping, which came to be known by the initials of the first set of the five member countries, will now stand for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). Bhutan and Nepal joined the group recently.

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