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India offers help to combat terrorism

By P.S. Suryanarayana

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN Aug. 1. India today offered to "develop practical programmes of cooperation" to combat terrorism in conjunction with the Association of South East Asian Nations. Outlining the offer at the ASEAN-India dialogue, the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, said: "India is ready to work together both bilaterally with the ASEAN countries and in the India-ASEAN framework".

Indirectly commending the ASEAN for reaching an anti-terror understanding with the U.S. here today, Mr. Sinha said: "As a major victim of terrorism, India fully supports ASEAN's efforts to develop bilateral and regional cooperation to combat terrorism".

Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Brunei's Foreign Minister and chairman of the latest round of ASEAN's meetings with its dialogue partners, underlined at a post-conference media meet that the association was looking forward to its prospective summit with India, the first of its kind, later this year.

Mr. Sinha called upon the prosperous nations to address the problem of development deficit across the world. Intervening during the plenary session of the ASEAN post-ministerial conference, he said India would play a proactive role in the promotion of the association's own initiative for internal economic integration.

Addressing the richer countries present at the ASEAN's post-ministerial conference with all its dialogue partners, Mr. Sinha said that an equitable regime of international trade rather than the practice of external aid to the poor countries would help address the issue of development deficit. It

was estimated that a five per cent surge in the exports of the developing countries would enable them to net $350 billion over a given period. This would be far more beneficial to the developing countries than aid. Mr. Sinha told the ASEAN members that India would play a proactive role in

the promotion of the association's own initiative of internal integration between its less-developed member-states on one side and its advanced members on the other.

New Delhi's contribution in this regard would be of the order of $5 millions. Mr. Sinha said the identified areas of cooperation were those relating to human resources development, information and communications technology, besides infrastructure projects.

The External Affairs Minister called upon the developed bloc to resist the temptation of "cherry-picking the best and the brightest manpower from the developing countries. The immigration policies of the rich countries should be made more equitable with a view to promoting a better mobility of labour across frontiers.

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