With this year's summit, the seven-member grouping founded in Dhaka in 1985 steps into its third decade.
His Pakistani counterpart Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali received him at the airport.
'We want to give our undivided attention and energy to the success of SAARC,' he said.
Islamabad will be sealed off completely from Tuesday with army helicopters making surveillance sorties and 4,000 policemen keeping vigil.
'Obviously, there will be occasions when leaders will get together during the conference and at the retreat. So those occasions will be there,' Foreign Secretary Shashank said.
Jamali thanked Vajpayee for confirming his attendance at the next month's SAARC summit in Islamabad.
Natwar on a three-day visit to Bangladesh from Saturday
The sojourn was cancelled due to foggy weather conditions in the north. The PM also wanted to prepare for the SAARC summit.
At the 14th summit, India will become the chairman of the regional grouping for a year, taking over from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is awaiting a fresh date to host the SAARC summit postponed due to the devastating tidal wave disaster that hit Asia and said priority would be given to India, Sri Lanka and Maldives in setting the new schedule.
However, the details of the meeting were not officially confirmed.
According to Dawn, Modi in his message reiterated India's desire to build good neighbourly relations with Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to seek the cooperation of India's neighbours to check extremist violence and to adopt an approach of zero tolerance towards terrorism at the two-day South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit which begins on Wednesday in Kathmandu.
Nepal said it 'has received communications' from four member-states -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India -- in which they conveyed their inability to participate in the 19th SAARC summit.
It is a simple vegetarian spread 'with less spices and oil' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi while his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif is having halal meat dishes during their stay in Nepal for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit.
They shared the dais but other than a formal handshake, there was no exchange of courtesies between prime ministers of India and Pakistan during the nearly three-hour South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit in Kathmandu on Wednesday.
India and Pakistan should move from confrontation to cooperation, Pakistan's High Commissioner Abdul Basit on Tuesday said while adding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is keen to normalise bilateral relations.
He also rubbished the claim of 'video evidence' of the strike.
Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry 'condemned the unprovoked firing by' Indian forces on the Line of Control in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed, Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.
Amid continued strain in ties, Pakistan on Wednesday said it does not see any prospect of having structured talks with India in the near future and made it clear that the ball is in India's court to initiate dialogue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will only travel to Kathmandu when he will leave on Tuesday to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Nepal, despite his wish to visit other parts of the country including Janakpur, the revered Hindu religious site.
Ignoring India's opposition, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday said Pakistan will hold dialogue with Kashmiri separatists to take them into confidence before engaging in peace talks with India.
The five Indian fishermen, who were sentenced to death on charges of drug trafficking, have been released by the Sri Lankan authorities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Pakistan to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit likely to be held in September 2016.
Pakistan on Friday released 40 Indian prisoners, including fishermen, from a jail in karachi, officials said.
Just hours after the White House confirmed that United States President Barack Obama would be travelling to India in January, the State Department on Friday announced that it will send a top diplomat to India next week to lay the ground work for the historic presidential visit.
FM said every major terrorist incident in the world has a 'Pakistani footprint' around it.
'If there is a background of some kind of mutual understanding on how the dialogue process might develop in a mutually satisfactory manner...' 'If this understanding impacts positively on the ground situation...' 'As of now this is a heroic assumption. But it does not have to remain such.'
She also said the Kartarpur corridor initiative was not linked to the dialogue process with Pakistan.
A day after a handshake with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Friday that talks with India should not be at the cost of his country's 'dignity, self-respect and reputation'.
It also asked Pakistan to act tough on terror.
Leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan have also decided not to attend the summit, which now has to be cancelled as per the SAARC charter.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looks forward to useful conversations with his fellow leaders from China, South Africa, Brazil and Russia on addressing pressing international and regional challenges that stand in the way of their goals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that developing close relations with India's neighbours is a key priority of his government, ahead of his planned visit to Kathmandu on Tuesday afternoon to attend the 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Summit.
It alleged that the decision by India to 'derail the summit' effectively 'contradicts' Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region.
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