Delivering the P.N. Haskar Memorial Lecture at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) here, he said the future of all South Asian countries was interlinked and all countries in the region would have to work together to deal with challenges.

Dr Manmohan Singh said leaders of all South Asian countries should have this perspective in mind for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Dhaka later this week.

“No country can any longer pretend that someone’s terrorists could be someone else’s freedom fighters. No government can any longer pretend that what happens across the border is not going to hurt it internally,” Dr Singh told a select gathering of intellectuals here.

“Be it poverty, be it disease, be it natural disasters or be it terrorism, the issues are inter-linked.”

He said the recent natural disasters of tsunami and the earthquake in India and Pakistan had given indications that even nature wanted all South Asian countries to unite.

“One must endeavour to ensure that our neighbours are also our friends.”