President Mahinda Rajapaksa left for Thimphu, Bhutan early morning today (26 April) with the Sri Lankan delegation to attend the 16th SAARC Summit held on 28 – 29 April.

Heads of eight nations from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be attending the Summit.

The theme of the 16th Summit is ‘Towards a green and happy South Asia ’. SAARC is celebrating its silver jubilee this year (25 years), having held its first Summit in Dhaka in December 1985.

Three agreements of regional importance are due to be signed at the Summit.

It would discuss rural prosperity as a key issue. Special concern will be focused on bridging the gap between urban and rural communities in the distribution of economic gains.

In addition, pooling of resources to draw upon by countries when in need and environmental issues too would be discussed at length.

The SAARC Foreign Ministers' conference is now underway and Sri Lanka's new Minister for External Affairs, Prof. G.L. Peiris is participating in it as his first assignment of the post.

Sri Lanka expects to use the Summit as a platform to share the experience of its recent political and military gains with other regional leaders, stated Minister for External Affairs, Prof. G.L. Peiris at a media briefing yesterday (25).

It is time for SAARC to evolve itself as a truly people-centric organization, he said.

“After 25 years it is a good opportunity for SAARC to take stock of the present situation. What we have to change, the challenges ahead and how best SAARC can organize itself to define its priorities to serve the region,” the Minister added.

The Minister was of the opinion that the people of the region should be able to look up to SAARC as an organization which is directly relevant to their well-being.

SAARC should look at moving from a policy formulation stage to an implementation stage to realize this purpose, he added.

The techniques adopted by Sri Lanka to eliminate terrorism with limited resources could provide food for thought for other regional nations affected with similar problems, he said.

This is the first time that Bhutan is hosting the Summit. President Rajapaksa holds the current Chairmanship of SAARC, which held its 15th Summit in Colombo in August 2008.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa will hold bilateral discussions with the SAARC State Leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the SAARC summit.

This would be the first meeting between the two Heads of State after the re-election of President Rajapaksa in the January 26 Presidential polls.

In his first interaction with the media, Minister G.L. Pieris said the meeting would provide an opportunity to exchange views on a whole range of issues of mutual interest to India and Sri Lanka.