It gives me great pleasure to extend greetings and felicitations to all fellow South Asians on the twenty-first anniversary of the signing of the Charter by which the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established.
The preamble to the SAARC Charter reaffirms that the South Asian region is bound by ties of history and culture. Our region occupies an identifiable geographical space and has the advantage of a variety of intra-regional complementarities.
Today, we have an opportunity to reclaim our legacy of interconnectedness to restore the natural exchange of goods, people and ideas that has characterized our shared South Asian space. We should seek to explore this and related themes further at the forthcoming Fourteenth SAARC Summit in New Delhi in April, 2007.
An integrated South Asia would bring concrete benefits to the people of our region and the ratification of SAFTA and the decision to establish the SAARC Development Fund (SDF) are important steps in that direction.
India looks forward to working with all other SAARC member countries to realize the aspirations and goals that are enshrined in the SAARC Charter.