MALE: Maldives expressed its keenness to host this year’s summit of South Asian Association of regional cooperation (SAARC), in place of Sri Lanka as the first meeting of the Indo-Maldives joint economic commission got underway here.
This was conveyed to the external affairs minister Inder Kumar Gujral, during his meetings here with the Maldives president Abdul Maumoon Gayoom, and foreign minister Fathulla Jameel.
Veering round to India’s position, the Maldives leaders favored Sri Lanka hosting the 1991 SAARC summit and did not want Colombo to link the question of holding the summit with the deduction of the Indian peacekeeping force from the island.
Indications here are that the question of hosting the next SAARC summit would be decided in the first week of February after the visit of the Pakistani foreign minister Sahibzada Yaqub Khan to the region later this month.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990
