NEPAL-SAARC

Nepal to host SAARC summit in November
    From Shirish B Pradhan
    Kathmandu, Aug 5 (PTI) The 18th SAARC summit will be held
here in November, Nepal's foreign ministry said today.
    A cabinet meeting here decided Nepal would host the summit
in November, said assistant spokesperson at the Foreign
Ministry, Bharat Raj Regmi.
    The two-day summit will be inaugurated on November 26.
Nepal will chair the summit of the regional grouping.
    The dates have been circulated by the SAARC Secretariat
based in Kathmandu to other member countries.
    Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the eight members of the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
    Nepal has formed a high-level preparatory committee and
several other panels to make the summit a success, Regmi said.
    Nepal is hosting the SAARC Summit after an interval of 12
years. The country previously hosted the summit in 2002, when
then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former Pakistani
military ruler Pervez Musharraf met in Kathmandu.
    The SAARC preparatory committee meeting consisting of
joint secretaries will take place on November 22 and the
foreign secretary level standing committee will meet from
November 23-24.