- Heart of Asia Conference is a two-day summit in Amritsar.
- It was a platform set up in 2011 to help Afghanistan, a war-battered country, in its transition.
- On Sunday, the main conference will be jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
- The participating nations include Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and UAE.
- There will be no bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan.
Sartaj Aziz denied entry into Golden Temple due to security reasons. India had ensured that no untoward incident was to take place during the two-day conference.
Amritsar Declaration
The Amritsar Declaration calls for regional and international cooperation for ensuring the elimination of terrorism in all forms, which includes the dismantling of its safe havens, disrupting the financial and logistical support to it.
We encourage early finalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism with consensus. We recognise the necessity of taking serious measures to address recruitment of youth to extremist and terrorist networks.Amritsar Declaration
The declaration also states that the youth’s radicalisation can only be prevented by effective de-radicalisation strategies that involve all the Heart of Asia countries.
Trilateral Trade Deal
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke at the conference, about the trilateral transit and transport agreement signed between India, Afghanistan and Iran.
Benefits to Afghanistan will accrue if Afghani trucks could carry Indian products to markets in the country as well as to Central Asia and beyond and indeed visa-versa.
In this regard, India willing to receive Afghan trucks on its territory, at Attari and will be happy to create necessary facilities.
Acknowledge Support and Finance of Terrorism
Jaitley spoke about terrorism, especially about the violence inflicted onto Afghanistan by Taliban and other terrorist groups like ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad. He highlighted the duty of all the participating nations in ensuring terrorism doesn’t find a safe haven in any form or manifestation in the nations.
Heart of Asia Declaration recognises terrorism as the biggest threat to peace and demands an immediate end to all forms of terrorism. The support and financing that terrorism derives in our region needs to be acknowledged.Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister