Referring to the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) agreement, the 43-point Islamabad Declaration and South Asian Additional Protocol for containing terrorism in the region, the minister said, "Never (before) in the history of Saarc had all the countries agreed on so many important issues."

He said at a press briefing at the foreign ministry yesterday evening Dhaka is going to host the 13th Saarc summit scheduled for next year. "We believe the (next) summit will be more meaningful and more challenging," he added. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia who acted as Saarc chairperson in 1994 will be the grouping's next chairperson during that summit.

"I have noticed a tremendous sense of commitment on the part of the leaders of the nations at the summit."

On terrorism, Morshed said all the seven countries have united on fighting terrorism in South Asia. "We have found a common platform to fight terrorism. We now have to redefine terrorism. For instance, we must separate political terrorists, ideological terrorists and religious terrorists."

The foreign minister noted that the region has agreed on an "umbrella approach" to deal with all forms of terrorism. The Saarc nations also agreed to look after each other so that their security is not threatened.

Explaining Safta agreement, the minister said, "This will come into effect from January 2006. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka being the three developing countries of the region will cut down tariff to zero to five percent. As a least developed country, Bangladesh will have to lower the tariff by same proportion in 2016."

He negated the notion that the existing bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between different Saarc countries will collide with Safta. "We'll in fact get more benefits through the FTAs. There is no clash between the two types of agreements."

Morshed said Safta does not dictate any condition to allow transit as a reporter pointed it out to him that a Safta clause stipulates that each nation should be "eliminating barriers to trade in and facilitating cross-border movement of goods between the territories of the contracting states".