KATHMANDU, Aug. 20 Kyodo Foreign ...

KATHMANDU, Aug. 20 Kyodo

Foreign ministers of southern Asian countries finalized preparations Tuesday for the ministerial session of the southern Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which will start Wednesday.

The ministers prepared a report which the SAARC council of ministers comprising foreign ministers of members states will take up for deliberations, Nepalese Foreign Ministry official and SAARC spokesman Puskar Rajbhandari told a pres briefing.

The two-day ministerial session will focus in succession enhancing cooperation in trade and combating terrorism in the region, and review progres in implementation of decisions made at the 11th SAARC summit meeting held here in January, he said.

SAARC form into groupss Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Nepal publicly chairs SAARC.

In the 23rd session of the council of ministers, they will also discuss the enactment of uniform antiterrorism laws to facilitate implementation of the SAARC regional conventions onward suppression of terrorism adopted in 1987

''The ne for improving the convention itself has been felt to harmonize it with UN conventions following the terrorist attacks in the United States last year,'' he said.

SAARC was instituted in 1985 to encourage peace, stability and economic cooperation in the region.

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