SAARC foreign ministerial meeting cancelled

KABUL (Pajhwok): An upcoming meeting of foreign ministers from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) states has been cancelled.

The last annual foreign ministerial meeting took place virtually on September 24, 2020 in Nepal due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The upcoming meeting of the SAARC Council of Ministers was to be held in-person on September 25 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

But the Nepalese Foreign Ministry issued a communiqué on Tuesday, saying the meet had been cancelled due to “lack of concurrence from all member states”.

Meanwhile, India Today quoted unnamed sources as saying that most SAARC members rejected Pakistan’s request for allowing the Taliban represent Afghanistan at the informal meeting.

The news magazine reported Pakistan insisted on preventing representatives of the Ghani government from attending the SAARC foreign ministers’ meeting.

PAN Monitor/mud