As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistan counterpart Shaukat Aziz today reviewed the ongoing peace process, including “progress” on the contentious Siachen and Sir Creek issues, Pakistan offered to export cement to India and agreed to increase direct air links to facilitate greater travel.

The Pakistani offer to export cement came a day after India scrapped countervailing duty and additional customs duty on cement, making imports more viable. Ahead of the meeting, Aziz told reporters that objectives of peace and prosperity in the region could not be realised “without a durable resolution to the Kashmir issue”. At the meeting, Aziz assured Singh that Pakistan would take early action to return fishing boats seized from Indian fishermen and review the status of each other’s citizens in jails. Pakistan will also be issuing more visas to Sikh pilgrims to visit shrines there. Aziz thanked the Indian government for the financial support given to families of the victims of the Samjhauta Express blasts in which 68 people, mostly Pakistanis, were killed.

Meanwhile, with a pledge to make tangible progress on four issues — water (including flood control), energy, food and environment — in the next six months, the 14th SAARC summit came to an end here today.

“We (the member countries) will work with international agencies to develop and implement viable cross-border regional projects in these four sectors,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his concluding remarks.

Later, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee termed the summit as the “most successful and least contentious” of all SAARC summits. The leaders expressed concern over global climate change and its impact on lives and livelihoods.

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