India Declines SAARC Summit Invitation

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The Indian Government declined the invitation to the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit, 2018, sent by Pakistan, on Wednesday.

Sushma Swaraj, the Minister of External Affairs of India, clarified, the Kartarpur Corridor project with Pakistan will not lead to any bilateral talks between India and Pakistan until the latter stops sponsoring terrorist activities in India.

The Kartarpur Corridor is a project to construct a linking road between India and Pakistan. The project was proposed by the Sikh community of India to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur, situated 4.7 km from the India Pakistan Border.

Ms. Swaraj said, “See, bilateral dialogues and Kartarpur corridor are two different things. And I am very happy that for the last 20 years, rather many years, India has been asking for the Kartarpur corridor and for the first time, Pakistan responded positively to this. But it doesn’t mean that the bilateral dialogue will start only on this. The bilateral talks always say that terror and talks can’t go together. The moment Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, the dialogue can start. But the dialogue is not only connected with the Kartarpur corridor.”

Ms. Swaraj also mentioned the lack of action by Pakistan against the terrorists responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack (2008) and the Jammu and Kashmir encounter, which took place on Wednesday, to be the reasons behind India’s dismissal of Pakistan’s invitation.

The last SAARC Summit held successfully was in 2014, hosted by Nepal in Kathmandu. In 2016, India denied to attend the 19th SAARC Summit, which was going to be held in Pakistan, alleging Pakistan of the Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir. After India made the move of boycotting the SAARC Summit in 2016, the other members of SAARC, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, also refused to attend the meet.

India’s withdrawal from the upcoming SAARC Summit could lead to the cancellation of the summit once again, if the other SAARC members refuse to attend it as well.

For further updates, stay tuned.

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