South Asian leaders resolved Wednesday to create a free-trade zone within four years to help ease regional poverty and concluded a summit buoyed by a warming of relations between rivals India and Pakistan.
On the sidelines of the three-day summit, Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif broke a three-year stalemate by agreeing to discuss their countries' longtime dispute over Kashmir. Each has a portion of the Himalayan region, and Muslim militants are waging a separatist campaign on the Indian side.Despite unexpected congeniality in public, Gujral said he had rejected Sharig's request to remove any of the hundreds of thousands of Indian troops stationed in Kashmir.
Speaking to reporters late Tuesday, Gujral said he told Sharif the troops were there to stop terrorism.
He warned against too much optimism over a rapprochement between India and Pakistan, the most powerful countries in the seven-member South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation.