DHAKA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The SAARC Standing Committee Tuesday prepared a 4-point guideline for granting China and Japan as observer status to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

    The guidelines include subscribing to SAARC charter and objectives by observer countries. An observer country will be able to attend opening and closing session of the SAARC summit as well as Council of Ministers meeting and other ministerial meeting, a senior official in the Foreign Ministry said here Wednesday.

    According to the guidelines an observer country will not make any statement at SAARC meetings but will be bale to circulate their statements on any issue. An Observer country will be able to make proposal on cooperation and joint venture projects with the approval of the concerned SAARC committees.

    The standing committee that met for a special session also finalized the draft of a Joint Declaration to be signed by Afghanistan to become the full member of the forum.

    These documents would be placed for finalization at the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting expected to be held in Dhaka on July 18.

    Afghanistan will join the next SAARC summit in India in 2007 as full member while China and Japan as Observers.

    The 13th SAARC summit held in Dhaka last November agreed to grant membership of Afghanistan and observer status to China and Japan.

    Recently Korea and USA also formally applied for SAARC observer status. The Standing Committee Tuesday agreed in principle to grant USA and Korea observer status.

    SARRC, which formed in 1985, is consisted of seven member countries which are Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, The Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Enditem