17th SAARC Summit to be held in Nov. 2011 in Maldives

The 17th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be held in late 2011, officials informed here on Wednesday.

Talking to Xinhua, Azizuddin Ahmadzada, Head of Media Integration, and Afghanistan and also among the Board Directors of SAARC Secretariat, said that the 17th SAARC Summit will be held in late November 2011 in Maldives.

He, however, refrained from commenting further on the matter.

The 17th SAARC Summit was scheduled for March 2011. However, with the rescheduling of the inter-summit meeting of the SAARC for February next year, the 17th SAARC summit has also been postponed.

The government of host nation Maldives has informed that it will not be able to hold the summit as slated for March 2011 due to the rescheduling of the inter-summit meeting, thus, postponing the date  until late 2011.

The 16th SAARC summit was held in Thimpu, Bhutan, where two separate declarations on regional cooperation and climate change in late April this year were issued.

This year also marks the silver jubilee of the establishment of SAARC.

Founded in 1985, the SAARC includes Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan.