Pakistan's proposal for SAARC Leaders Summit in Islamabad falls flat

Pakistan's proposal to host the19th SAARC summit in Islamabad falls again due to lack of consensus at the SAARC FMs virtual meet on Thursday.

Sources say, "Most countries felt it’s not an opportune time for the event considering due to the COVID pandemic and most member countries were preoccupied with it".

The summit was to happen in 2016 in Islamabad but India along with most SAARC countries boycotted it due to Uri Terror attack perpetrated by Pak based terrorist.

The SAARC FMs meet is an annual gathering which has been taking place since 1997 on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly. Due to COVID, the meet happened virtually for the first time this year. 

In Thursday meeting, Secretary-General of SAARC gave a report on the status of regional cooperation since the last informal meeting of the SAARC Council of Ministers took place in New York on 26th September 2019.

Last year, Pakistan had claimed consensus has been achieved for the summit, but no other country made a public pronouncement on it.