United Nations, New York — Leaders of Bangladesh and Pakistan have discussed ways to revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a regional bloc of eight countries that has remained inert since 2016, mainly due to tensions between the amalgam’s key heavyweights Pakistan and India.
“During the meeting with Pakistani leader (Shehbaz Sharif), our chief adviser (Muhammad Yunus) discussed reviving SAARC which has remained no-functional for about a decade,” Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Yunus.
“Dr Yunus argued that SAARC can emerge as a true platform for regional cooperation and can work for some two billion people who live in South Asia,” he said.
Established in 1985, SAARC comprises of eight-member countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And the Nobel laureate and Bangladesh’s interim leader Yunus has urged Pakistan to help revitalise the bloc during his recent bilateral meeting with Pakistani PM Sharif on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
“Both leaders agreed that there was a need to work closely at bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels for the progress and development of the peoples of both countries,” Pakistan’s mission to the UN said in a statement after their meeting.
