7 Asian Nations Open Conference on Cooperation

NEW DELHI — Foreign ministers of the South Asian Assn. for Regional Cooperation opened a conference Thursday overshadowed by the recent violation of Sri Lankan sovereignty by fellow association member India.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi opened the two-day meeting by urging foreign ministers of the seven nations--India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan--to continue working for “expansion and growth” in South Asia, one of the world’s poorest regions.

External Affairs Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari of India told the conference in an opening statement that “relations between neighbors cannot be wholly free from problems, (but) our common concerns should be considered more important than individual concerns.”

Sri Lanka had threatened to boycott the conference to protest India’s violation of its sovereignty June 4 when it airdropped supplies to the Jaffna Peninsula, where New Delhi said thousands of civilians were suffering under a military offensive against Tamil rebels.

India, home to 55 million Tamils in southern Tamil Nadu state, has been trying to mediate a settlement between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels fighting to create a separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka.