D-8 opens economic summit

D-8 opens economic summit

Agencies Tehran

The economic summit of Islamic states known as the Developing Eight countries (D-8) opened on Wednesday with leaders including Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri saying they would seek to strengthen cooperation and push toward creation of a common market.

The D-8 member states are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

At the initiative of former Turkish prime minister Necmeddin Erbakan, the D-8 was founded in 1997 to represent the eight developing Islamic countries. It was intended as a counterweight to the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations.

D-8 countries have a combined population of more than 800 million and an area of 8 million square kilometers.

But the D-8 summit was marred by an accident in which hundreds of people killed.

The accident occurred on Wednesday when runaway rail wagons loaded with an explosive cocktail of sulphur, petrol and fertiliser derailed and blew up in northeast Iran, local officials said.

The cargo exploded as firefighters, watched by curious villagers, were attempting to douse a blaze which broke out after the string of dozens of wagons came off the tracks at Khayyam station.

"Up to now, accurate reports say 182 people are dead and 350 injured," Mohammad Maghdori, a deputy governor general of Khorassan province and chief of emergencies, told state television.