SAARC meeting, to be held in New York, cancelled as Pakistan wants Taliban participation: Report

A conference of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) foreign ministers scheduled for Saturday in New York has been cancelled. According to credible sources, Pakistan wanted the Taliban to represent Afghanistan at the SAARC meeting. India and a few other members opposed the plan, and the meeting was cancelled owing to a lack of consensus or consent. The meeting, conducted on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly each year, was hosted by Nepal.

India has not yet recognised the Taliban. The world has yet to recognise Kabul's new administration, and the UN has banned senior cabinet officials. Amir Khan Muttaqi, the interim foreign minister of Afghanistan's Taliban-led government, is unlikely to attend UN or related meetings. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated last week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting that the Taliban is a non-inclusive administration and that the world must think twice before recognising or recognising the Afghan regime.

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He further stated that women and minorities had no representation in Kabul's administration. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation comprised of eight South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. According to reports, the majority of SAARC countries decided to keep an empty chair for Afghanistan throughout the meeting. However, Pakistan refused to comply, and the conference was cancelled. According to the SAARC Secretariat, the summit has been cancelled due to a lack of agreement from all member nations as of today.

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• SAARC
• Afghanistan
• Taliban
• Pakistan