New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written to the SAARC Secretariat extending his greetings and felicitations to the people of member countries on 35th SAARC charter day.
Modi’s letter assumes significance as India has distanced itself from the SAARC citing Pakistan’s unrelenting support to terrorism.
The prime minister has written a letter to the SAARC Secretariat extending his greetings and felicitations to the people of the SAARC countries on occasion of the SAARC Charter Day, official sources said.
SAARC Summits are usually held biennially hosted by a member state in alphabetical order. The member state hosting the summit assumes the Chair of the Association.
The last SAARC Summit in 2014 was held in Kathmandu, which was attended by Modi.
On December 8, 1985 at the first SAARC Summit in Dhaka, the leaders of the seven South Asian states – the Maldives, India, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – signed a charter to establish the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Afghanistan became the eight SAARC member in 2007.
SAARC Charter Day is commemorated every year to mark the signing of this Charter.
The 2016 SAARC Summit was to be held in Islamabad, but after a deadly militant attack on an Indian Army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in September that year, India expressed its inability to participate in the summit due to “prevailing circumstances”.
The summit was called off after Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan also joined India in boycotting the summit.
SAARC summits are usually held biennially and hosted by a member state in the alphabetical order. The last SAARC Summit was held in Kathmandu in 2014.
—PTI

Press Trust of India