Islamabad: An official of the Indian High Commission in Pakistan staged a walkout of a SAARC meeting over the presence of a minister from Pakistan Administered Kashmir (PaK) at the event, according to source here.
Diplomat Shubham Singh, left the meeting to register India’s protest over the presence of PaK minister Chaudhary Muhammad Saeed at the SAARC Chambers of Commerce and Industry meeting on the SAARC Charter Day in Islamabad on Sunday.
In 2016, India had pulled out of the 19th SAARC summit that was to be held in Islamabad after militant attack on an Indian Army camp in north Kashmir’s Uri.
The summit was called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to attend. No SAARC meeting has happened ever since.
India called off the foreign minister-level talks with Pakistan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York in September after the brutal killing of policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of a postage stamp by Pakistan that glorified Kashmiri militant commander Burhan Wani.