By Sarwar Kashani, IANS,
Thimphu : The twice-postponed meeting of SAARC home ministers on ways to jointly combat terrorism, crime and drug trafficking in South Asia will now be held in June in Islamabad.
“The meeting will take place in Islamabad on June 26,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters here after a meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh of India and Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan on the margins of the 16th SAARC summit.
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram is likely to attend the conference that will discuss coordination among security agencies and sharing of information among India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Afghanistan on fighting terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking.
The meeting was scheduled to be held in February but was postponed because Nepal expressed its inability to attend due to domestic compulsions. Earlier, it was to be held in November 2009, but was put off because Dhaka had to conduct parliamentary polls.
The first such meeting was held in Dhaka in May 2006 and the second in New Delhi in October 2007.