ISLAMABAD: (APP) The international agencies have reported that India was now busy making efforts to prevent appointment of Pakistan’s diplomat as SAARC’s next Secretary General as the tenure of the sitting incumbent expires this March.
According to Urdu News, the internal differences of member states were affecting the South Asian regional cooperative organization, SAARC. If this issue was not resolved in time, it is feared that the SAARC Secretariat would continue to function without a head for a long period of time.
It may be pertinent to note that Pakistan’s right to take over the SAARC Secretariat will start on March 1, 2017 and the tenure’s duration would last till February 28, 2020. It is said it is the first time in the history of SAARC that breakdown is feared to be simmering around the appointment of the organization’s Secretary General.
Earlier, Pakistan had nominated its diplomat, Amjad Hussain Sial to SAARC’s 13th Secretary General, and is expected to head the organization’s secretariat in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu, by replacing Arjun Bahadur Thapa, whose tenure will end by the end of this month.
The announcement of Amjad Hussain Sial’s nomination was done in March 2016 in Nepal’s Pukha Ra city during the SAARC Council of Ministers meeting, and whose approval was given by all the SAARC member states, however, last month, through a diplomatic correspondence, India had questioned the organization’s Secretariat on the ‘manner of appointment for Thapa’s successor.
India pointed out that appointment of SAARC Secretary General should have been done through its Council of Ministers meeting, which was not held in Islamabad last time as a result of India and its allies abstaining from participation. Pakistani officials, on their part, are accusing India for the ‘delaying tactics’ and point out that approval of all SAARC member states including India had already been made in the ministers meeting in 2016.