28 January 2017

News Story: Pakistan hopes to host postponed regional summit soon

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Friday expressed the hope that a regional summit, which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad November but was postponed over India boycott, will be held soon.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz talked to Arjun Bahadur Thapa, the outgoing secretary general of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), in Islamabad that India "impeded the SAARC process and violated the spirit of the SAARC Charter."

"Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the SAARC umbrella can be pursued more vigorously," Aziz said, according to a Foreign Ministry's statement.

Thapa emphasized the need to overcome the difficulties that the organization faced and expressed the hope that the 19th SAARC Summit would be held in Islamabad as soon as possible.

Read the full story at Xinhua