"I want to assure all members of Saarc and indeed the world that Pakistan is committed to pursuing peace with India," prime minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Shujaat said as he inaugurated the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation's (Saarc) 25th Council of Ministers.

The Saarc heads of state summit seven months earlier, also in Islamabad, was the setting for a breakthrough agreement between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and then Indian premier Atal Behari Vajpayee to resume talks after a 30-month hiatus and the 2002 confrontation that almost erupted into their fourth war.

"Pakistan has under the leadership of President Musharraf embarked on making meaningful efforts to overcome all differences and disputes with India including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir," Shujaat said.

"Let us resolve that Saarc must become a symbol of peace and progress, not only to ensure stability in South Asia but to win the hearts and minds of the people of this region."

Exploratory talks among senior officials since the January summit have brought new momentum to the normally sluggish 19-year old forum, which also groups Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

"Saarc has started to exude new confidence and its international profile has enhanced," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said in his opening address.

The seven nations represent one-fifth of humanity and one of the world's poorest regions.

Tensions between South Asia's giants India and Pakistan have been blamed for crippling trade and development among South Asia's poverty-stricken 1.4 billion people, who earn an average 450 dollars a year.

The two-day meeting is focussed on reducing poverty by freeing up trade, sharing energy, promoting investment and jointly developing information technology and telecommunications.

The foreign ministers will also push forward a free trade agreement, under which barriers will start being broken down from January 2006.

"We are encouraged by the efforts that are being made to operationalise the South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta)," Kasuri said.

"The huge market potential of South Asia would bring benefits to all member states, and would also enable us to attract investments and help accelerate our economic growth."

Most attention will be on sideline talks between Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh today (Wednesday).

Saarc Award
Meanwhile, South Asian foreign ministers at a meeting in Islamabad yesteday introduced Saarc Award and unanimously decided to confer the first one on late president Ziaur Rahman.

The Council of Ministers took the decision on the first day of a two-day meeting that began in the Pakistan capital to review progress on various agenda of the seven-nation grouping.

"This is a mark of recognition of the concept of institutionalised regional cooperation in South Asia as envisioned by former president Zia," Director General of External Publicity Zahirul Huq told the UNB over phone in the evening, quoting a message from Islamabad.

Zia was assassinated in 1980.

The posthumous award will be formally conferred during the 13th Saarc summit in Dhaka in January next year, Huq said.