NEW DELHI: Terrorism will figure in the April 3 and 4 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told presspersons ahead of the conference.

Sri Lanka, Mr. Menon said , had informed India of its intention to raise the issue at the 14th SAARC summit. The leaders would discuss how to deepen cooperation and what more could be done to fight the menace.

India's effort, he stated, would be to try and make SAARC a more efficient organisation: moving it to the stage of implementation. Mr. Menon said a number of bilateral meetings between leaders would also take place on the sidelines.

The Foreign Secretary confirmed an application had been received from Iran that sought observer status in SAARC. This would be considered by the Council of (Foreign) Ministers at their meeting on April 2, he stated. Mr. Menon said New Delhi had not taken a public position. As the incoming chair of SAARC, it wanted to be neutral, but favoured more involvement of its friend in the regional grouping.

The summit would focus on the issue of connectivity and transport linkages to give a boost to regional economic cooperation. According to him, an inter-governmental agreement was likely to be signed to set up a South Asian University, which had been proposed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 13th summit held in Dhaka in 2005. Referring to another Indian proposal, put forward at the 12th summit in Islamabad, to set up a poverty alleviation fund, Mr. Menon said member nations were trying to see whether the time was "ripe for a decision" in the form of a SAARC development fund.

India had pledged a sum of $100 million for use in other SAARC countries in Islamabad in January 2004.

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