Saturday, October 15, 2011

Building Bridges picked as: 17th SAARC Summit theme

ISLAMABAD: ‘Building Bridges’ will be the core theme for the two-day 17th SAARC Summit beginning in the picturesque Atoll Addu in Maldives next month on November 10-11, 2011. The theme, preferred by the Republic of Maldives, represents a range of new diplomatic initiatives covering geo-physical regional connectivity to conscious nursing of political dialogue among the SAARC community.

This will be the third-time SAARC Summit being hosted by the Maldives government: the previous ones in 1990 and 1997 respectively.

SAARC community consists of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The 16th Summit was held in April 2010 in Bhutan with Climate Change as its central subject of deliberations.

Maldives is trying to bridge political differences among the member countries of the SAARC forum.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani who is expected represent Pakistan at the 17th SAARC summit on November 10 and 11, 2011, will have second strategic occasion of meeting with his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh.

It was the Thimpu SAARC event of April 2010 that both Islamabad and New Dehli had agreed to open up years choked channels for diplomatic dialogue between them, the process now gone much ahead to a burgeoning bilateral trade and Pakistan’s consent to accord Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India.

Source: Hameed Shaheen / http://kashmirwatch.com/news.php

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