NEW DELHI: Every possibility is open on fighting terrorism, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said two days before leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet here for their 14th summit meeting.

Briefing presspersons after the meeting of the SAARC Standing Committee (of Foreign Secretaries), Mr. Menon stated that more progress had been made in the direction of setting up a SAARC University and the text of an inter-governmental agreement on the issue was "nearly finalised."

In a related development, the SAARC diplomats told this correspondent that Pakistan was the only country that had not given the green signal to set up the University, saying that the country's Cabinet had not cleared the document.

However, they did not rule out the possibility of Pakistan saying "yes" in the next couple of days.

Regional food bank

The diplomats maintained that while the SAARC declaration was still being negotiated by member nations, one other agreement — on setting up a regional food bank — would be signed by the regional grouping at the New Delhi summit.

According to Mr. Menon, India had quadrupled its contribution to the running of SAARC to a sum of Rs.100 million. Other members, too, had pledged to contribute more than their "assessed contributions."

The Foreign Secretary said that a SAARC agreement for the promotion and protection of investments needed more discussions before it could be concluded.

On the operationalisation of the SAARC development fund, Mr. Menon maintained that it had been decided to have an inter-governmental meeting to complete the job. [As reported, member nations have differences of opinion on the fund structure and how it is to be managed].

Asked whether the Foreign Secretaries had discussed any multilateral issues and the need for SAARC member States to coordinate their positions, the Foreign Secretary replied that these questions had been discussed informally, but would be taken up by the Council of (Foreign) Ministers on Monday.

To a question from a Sri Lankan journalist as to why no Indian Prime Minister had paid a bilateral visit to the island nation in the last 20 years, Mr. Menon replied that Indian Prime Ministers had travelled to Colombo after 1987 for SAARC summits.

"I hope it will happen soon," he said about a possible visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Colombo.

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