South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Foreign Ministers meeting, scheduled for December in Thimphu, has been shifted to February as it coincides with the International Climate Summit in Cancun, Mexico.
The meeting was scheduled for December 5 to 9 in Thimphu.
Officials at the foreign ministry told The Daily Star that Bhutan, the current Saarc chair, informed the member countries that the meeting of the Council of Ministers has been rescheduled for February 5-9 in Thimphu.
The council comprises all eight foreign ministers of the Saarc.
They said foreign ministers of most of the Saarc member states, including Bangladesh and Bhutan, would attend the International Climate Summit COP-16 in Cancun. So it would not be possible for them to attend the inter-summit meeting of the Saarc.
The meeting of the Council of Ministers will review various agendas endorsed by the 16th Saarc Summit held in Bhutan last April.
The Thimphu Summit underscored the need to cope with the challenges of climate change and global warming and also ratified Saarc Development Fund (SDF) for financing regional infrastructure development, among others.