DHAKA: The US has expressed interest in getting observer status in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Hemayetuddin has said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State John Gastright, who is on a three-day visit here, is likely to communicate this formally to Bangladesh, the current chair of SAARC, the daily Bangladesh Observer reported.
Last week, the US had written to the SAARC secretariat expressing ’eagerness’ to join as an observer.
The SAARC groups India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka in November last year approved Afghanistan as its new member and China and Japan as observers. The US and South Korea had also applied for observer status.
According to the Daily Star, Dhaka and Islamabad will host three important meetings of different SAARC bodies next month to finalise the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) implementation arrangements, modalities of SAARC funds and the terms and conditions for new membership and observer status of the association.
Dhaka will host the meeting of SAARC Standing Committee on April 10-12 and SAFTA Council of Ministers (SMC) on April 20.
The three-day standing committee meeting, comprising the foreign secretaries of the seven member countries, will prepare recommendations on how to strengthen SAARC. It will also determine the terms and conditions for new membership and observer status of the association.
It will also prepare a draft plan for the 2006-2015 decade that was declared as the ’SAARC Decade for Poverty Alleviation’ at the 13th summit.
Islamabad will host a meeting of SAARC finance ministers on April 14-15, which will finalise the modalities of different funds, including the South Asia Development Fund (SADF) and SAARC Development Fund (SDF).
The SDF, which has under it the SAARC poverty alleviation fund, proposes to raise $300 million under it to undertake education, health, and human resource development projects in the region. India has already committed to contribute $100 million for the fund.
The South Asia Development Fund will also focus on economic and social development. It already has $6 million in its coffers that are lying unutilised, officials here said. | 
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