SAARC summit to be called off as Dhaka, Kabul and Thimphu too slam Islamabad

3 NEIGHBOURS FOLLOW INDIA, NEPAL CALLS FOR CONDUCIVE ATMOSPHERE

A DAY after India announced it will not attend the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad in November, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan have conveyed to Nepal, the chair of SAARC, that they too will not be able to attend the summit.

All three countries, in different ways, blamed Pakistan for the current atmosphere and said it was not conducive for the summit. A formal announcement of the summit postponement will be made in Kathmandu in the next few days, since key government interlocutors in Nepal are not present in Kathmandu.

In a statement, the Nepal Foreign Ministry said: “The government of Nepal has received communications from the SAARC secretariat transmitting the diplomatic notes from four SAARC member states namely, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India in which they have conveyed their inability to participate in the 19th SAARC summit scheduled for November 9 and 10 in Islamabad, stating that the current regional environment is not conducive to the successful holding of the summit.”

“We have taken this development seriously. As the current chair of SAARC, the government of Nepal strongly urges that a conducive environment be created for the 19th SAARC summit soon by ensuring the participation of all member states in line with the spirit of the SAARC charter,” the Ministry stated.

In its letter to the SAARC secretariat, Bangladesh said,